Triumph Of The People: The Sandinista Revolution In Nicaragua [paperback ed.] 0862320364, 9780862320362

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The

Siettidinista

Revolidion

^1,

l.%y«^a

Triumph of the People The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua

George Black

Undergraduate

Tjtdi

Press,

57 Caledonian Road, London Nl

9DN /I

Triumph of the People was first published by Zed Press, 57 Caledonian Road, London Nl 9DNin October 1981. Copyright

ISBN ISBN

©

George Black, 1981

86232 036 4 Pb 86232 092 5 Hb

Copyedited by Mandy Macdonald Typeset by Margaret Cole Proofread by Penelope Fryxell Cover design by Jan Brown Cover photo by Camera Press Printed by Krips Repro, Meppel, Holland All rights reserved

U.S. Distributor:

Lawrence

Hill

& Co.,

520 Riverside Avenue,

Westport, Conn. 06880, U.S.A.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication

Data Black, George

Triumph of the people:

the Sandinista

revolution in Nicaragua. 1

.

Nicaragua

-

Politics

and government

- 1979I.

Title

972.85'052

ISBN ISBN

F1527

86232 036 4 Pb 86232 092 5 Hb

E

p yz

When we came

we began to take on the role of national The task really frightened us, but governing is an art and not an idea with which you are born, already planted in your head. We handled the war successfully and we were not soldiers. We became out of the trenches

leaders: statesmen, as they say.

guerrilleros either. It

is

— we were not horn guerrilleros We were not born as politicians our revolution, our people, which has created our role for us. .

Comandante Henry Ruiz *Modesto' 21 December 1979

It is realists

who make

the best revolutions, the best

and most profound

revolutions.

Fidel Castro

26 July 1979

Note to Readers

Due to the technical limitations of the typesetting system used in the production of this book we have been unable to include accents on Spanish words

in the text.

Acknowledgements

Whether consciously or unconsciously, many people have helped over the last two years to make this project a reality. In some cases, it has been the result of long friendship and constant advice; in others, a single conversation has been enough. My thanks, then, to the following people: Humberto Arguello, Tomas Arguello and Gonzalo Murillo of the Nicaraguan embassies in London and Brussels; Raul Guerra, Sylvia McEwan and other companeros of the FSLN Department of International Relations, for the proof that solidarity is a two-way process; Comandante Carlos Nunez and companeros of the FSLN Department of Propaganda and Political Education, for reading the manuscript and offering invariably helpful comments; Fernando Cardenal, Sonia de Chamorro, Katerina Grigsby, Roberto Saenz and many others for the inspiration of the Literacy Crusade; Angel Barrajon, Enrique Schmidt and Marivi Schmidt - the FSLN 'old guard' in Europe; Fatima Caldera of AMNLAE, Carlos Fernando Chamorro ofBarricada, Jose Duley of the EPS, Miriam Guevara and Olivia de Guevara of Solentiname, Uriel Guzman of the Monimbo CDS, Julio Lopez of Esteli, Salomon Ramirez of Bonanza, Jose Antonio Sanjines of the Frente Sur, Miriam Villaneuva of Rivas, and Ivan of the EPA; Hans Langenberg, Klaas Wellinga and other European solidarity workers; John Bevan, Richard Furtado and other comrades and friends of the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign in London; colleagues at work for giving me the informal equivalent of a two year sabbatical; Robert Molteno at Zed Press for efficiently and sympathetically dealing with an overlong manuscript; Nadine Abarca, Colin Cameron, Amalia Chamorro, Peter Chapman, Patricio Cranshaw, Ligia Elizondo, Alma Guillermoprieto, Phil Gunson, Hermione Harris, Alicia Hinojosa, Martin and Mora Lopez, Tommie Sue Montgomery, Reggie Norton, Biddy Richards, Sonia Roa Suazo, Pete Utting, Raul Vergara.

At

may

a level

possess

beyond is

And above

May

1981

London

Christine Czechowski.

due entirely to the people of Nicaragua, for

courage and inexhaustible generosity.

George Black

all,

individual thanks, however, whatever merit this

book

their militant

Map A:

mentioned

Principal Place-names

in the text

^.^^^^^""^^"^^

HONDURAS

^-v

Puerto

/^

,

Ciudad Sandino (El

1

J

'^ \

Wajpan

)

Cabezas^^

\

.Bonanza •

caio)

J

U RodU

f

• EsteU

Matagalpa

\^__^

•

Pancasan

.Juigalpa

\

M*"»«"»^Ma^saya^

\

\

^

V-

Montel.mai;^^^^

^

\

SanJuaiX

> "Delias Blancas

.

Map

B: Regional

1

\\ \

Q^

=!kJ ^ Del Sui

•Nueva Guinea

Nicaragua^^ J-l \

Ju'^^^t'^^f^ke

^\

Bluelields^\

*^>^

dranadal

"^--i,,^

^^>^

^CL-' ^_

_

^^"^

COSTA RICA

1_ Map

C:

Topography

sea-lcvel(lake$)

Glossary of Spanish Terms

Acuerdos

Agreements

Alfabetizacion

Literacy

Barrio

Urban

Brigadista

Literacy teacher

district, usually

working-class

Camisas Azules

Blue Shirts (Somocista Fascist Youth)

Campesino

Peasant

Capitalino Carretera Norte

Inhabitant of capital city Northern Highway (Managua)

Caudillo

Charismatic personaHst political leader, strongman

Central

Trade union federation

Comerciante

Trader

Comisariato

Store, normally attached to farm or other workplace

Compa

(Affectionate) abbreviation of companero, most

commonly

applied to soldiers in the Ejercito Popular

Sandinista

Companero

Comrade, friend Convenio Colectivo Joint agreement signed by workers and management National currency of Nicaragua, value (1980) 10 US Cordoba cents

commonly of the

Costenos

Coast dwellers, most

Cuartelazo

Seizure of power through military coup or barracks

Atlantic Coast

attack

Departamento Finca Frente Sur

Department, province (Large) farm Southern battle front

Cheap alcohol

Guaro Gusano 'El Hombre'

Worm;

Latifundista

Large landowner

Machete Manzana

Measurement of land area =

applied to anti-Castro

'The Man'

Cuban

exiles

- Somoza

Long-bladed knife used

in

farm work 1

.72 acres; also an urban

block

Marimba

Central American musical instrument similar to

xylophone

VI

wooden

Mestizo

Of mixed descent

Muchachos

Kids, boys, used of

Nacatamales Oreja

Pepena

(Indian and Spanish)

young combatants of the FSLN Nicaraguan delicacy of ground maize and meat Literally, 'ear': word used for Somocista informer Final stage of coffee hargest,

when

late

and

fallen

berries are picked

Sindicato

Urban housing area Red and black flag of the Trade Union

Tortilla

Flat maize pancake: staple food in Central

Reparto Rojinegro

Treceavo Mes

FSLN

America Thirteenth month', extra month's salary paid to workers in December

vu

L

Glossary of Organisations

Nicaragua!! politics are a labyrinth of initials and abbreviations. Listed here are those

which occur most frequently in the text. Less important organisawhenever mentioned.

tions are generally spelt out in full

AMNLAE AMPRONAC

Asociacion de Mujeres

Association of Nicaraguan

Nicaraguenses 'Luisa

Women

Amanda

Espinoza'

Asociacion de Mujeres

Ante

AMROCS ANCLEN

ANDEN APP

ARE ATC

Espinoza'

la

Problematica

CADIN CAS

CAUS

vin

Amanda

Association of Women Confronting the National

Nacional

Problem

Asociacion de Militares

Association of Somocista

Retirados, Obreros y

Retired Soldiers, Workers

Campesinos Somocistas

and Peasants

Asociacion Nacional del

National Association of

Clero Nicaraguense

Nicaraguan Clergy

Asociacion Nacional de

National Association of

Educadores Nicaraguenses Nicaraguan Teachers Area of Public Ownership Area de Propiedad del Pueblo Economic Reactivation Asamblea de Reactivacion Economica Assembly Rural Workers' Association Asociacion de Trabajadores del

BECAT

'Luisa

Campo

Brigadas Especiales

Special Brigades Against

Contra Actos de Terrorismo

Guard)

Camara de

Nicaraguan Chamber of

Industrias de

Acts of Terrorism (National

Nicaragua

Industries

Cooperativa Agricola

Sandinista Agricultural

Sandinista

Cooperative

Central de Accion y Unidad Sindical

Federation of Trade Union Action and Unity (Communist)

Glossary of Organisations

CBS(l)

Comite de Barrio

Sandinista Barrio

Committe

Sandinista

CBS

(2)

Comite de Base

Sandinista Base

Committee

Sandinista

CCS

Cooperativa de Credito y

Credit and Service

Servicios

Cooperative Civil

CDD

Comite de Defensa Civil Comite de Direccion Departamental

Committee

CDS

Comite de Defensa

Sandinista Defence

CDC

CEP(l)

CEP

(2)

CGT-I

Defence Committee Departmental Leadership

Sandinista

Committee

Colectivo de Educacion

People's Education

Popular

Collective

State Production Collective Produccion Confederacion General de General Confederation of Trabajo - Independiente Labour - Independent

Colectivo Estatal de

(Socialist)

CLT

Comite de Lucha de

los

Workers' Fighting

Trabajadores

Committee People's Industrial

COSEP

Corporacion Industrial del Pueblo Consejo de Defensa Centroamericana Comite Obrero Revolucionario Consejo Superior de la

Empresa Privada Comision Nacional

Private Enterprise

CNI

Intersindical

COIF

CONDECA

COR

Corporation Central American Defence

Council Revolutionary Workers'

Committee Higher Council of National Inter-Union

CPDH

Comision Permanente de Derechos Humanos

Commission Permanent Human Rights Commission

CST

Central Sandinista de

Sandinista Workers'

CTN

Trabajadores

Federation

Central de Trabajadores

Workers' Federation of Nicaragua (Social

de Nicaragua

Christian)

CUS

EDSN

Consejo de Unificacion

Council of Trade Union

Sindical

Unification

Ejercito Defensor de

Soberania Nacional

la

Army

for the

Defence of

National Sovereignty

(Sandino)

EEBI

Escuela de Entrenamiento Basic Infantry Training Basico de Infanteria

ENABAS

School (National Guard) Institute of

Empresa Nicaraguense de Nicaraguan

IX

Triumph of the People

EPA

Alimentos Basicos Ejercito Popular de

Basic Foodstuffs

People's Literacy

Army

Alfabetizacion

EPS

Ajercito Popular

Sandinista People's

Army

Sandinista

FAD FAN FAO FARAC

EARN

Fuerzas Armadas Democraticas Fuerza Aerea de Nicaragua Frente Amplio Opositor Fuerzas Armadas Anticomunistas Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de

Democratic Armed Forces (Somocista)

Nicaraguan Air Force

j

Broad Opposition Front Anti-Communist Armed

i

Forces (Somocista)

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Nicaragua (Somocista)

Nicaragua

FER

Frente Estudiantil

Revolutionary Students' Front

Revolucionario

FETSALUD

Federacion de Trabajadores de

FIR

FPN

FPR

FREPA FSLN

GPP

IAN

INDE

INRA INVIERNO

MAP-FO

MCCA

j

Health Workers' Federation la

Salud

Fondo

Internacional de Reconstruccion Frente Patriotico Nacional Frente Patriotico de la Revolucion Frente Patriotico Anticomunista Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional

International Reconstruction

Fund National Patriotic Front Patriotic Front of the

Revolution Patriotic

Anti-Communist

Front (Somocista) Sandinista National

Liberation Front

Prolonged Popular War

Guerra Popular Prolongada

(FSLN Tendency)

Institute Agrario

Nicaraguan Agrarian Institute

Nicaraguense

(Somoza)

Institute de Desarrollo

Nicaraguan Development

Nicaraguense

Institute

Institute Nicaraguense de

Nicaraguan Agrarian Reform

Agraria

Institute

Institute de Bienestar

Peasant Welfare Institute

Campesino

(Somoza)

Movimiento de Accion Popular - Frente Obrere Mercade Cemun

People's Action Movement Workers' Front

Central American

Common

-

Glossary of Organisations

MDN

Centroamericano Market Movimiento Democratico Nicaraguan Democratic Nicaraguense

Movement

MICOIN

Ministerio de Comercio

Ministry of Internal Trade

MIDA

Ministerio de Desarrollo

Ministry of Agricultural

Development

MILPAS

Agropecuario Milicias Populares Antisomocistas

Militias

Miskito,Sumo, Rama,

Miskito,

Sandinista, Asia

Sandinista, All Together

Takanka Movimiento Liberal

Constitutionalist Liberal

Constitucionalista

Movement

Interior

MISURASATA

MLC

MORE MPS

Anti-Somocista People's

Sumo, Rama,

Movimiento Obrero

Revolution Workers'

Revolucionario

Movement

Milicias Populares

Sandinista People's Militias

Sandinistas

MPU

Movimiento Pueblo Unido

OAS

-

OSN

Oficina de Seguridad

National Security Office

Nacional

(Somoza)

PCD

Partido Conservador

Democratic Conservative

PCN

Democrata Partido Comunista de

Communist Party of

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

PLI

Partido Liberal

Independent Liberal Party

United People's Movement

Organisation of American States

Party

Independiente

PLN

Partido Liberal

Nationalist Liberal Party

Nacionalista

(Somoza)

PPSC

Partido Popular

People's Social Christian

Socialcristiano

Party

PSC

Partido Socialcristiano

Social Christian Party

PSD PSN

Partido Socialdemocrata

Social Democratic Party

Partido Socialista

Nicaraguan Socialist Party

Nicaraguense

SCAAS

Sindicato de Carpinteros, Albaniles,

SENAPEP

Armadores y

Union of Carpenters, BrickAssembly Workers and

layers,

Similares

Allied Trades

Secretaria Nacional de

National Propaganda and

Propaganda y Educacion

Political

Education

XI

Triumph of the People

(FSLN)

Politica

Secretariat

UCA

Universidad

Central American Univei

UDEL

Centroamericana Union Democratica de

Democratic Union of

UDN

Liberacion

Liberation

Union Democratica de

Democratic Union of Nicaragua (right wing

Nicaragua

in

exile)

UN AN UPANIC

UPE

National

Autonoma de Nicaragua

University of Nicaragua

Union de Productores

Union of Agricultural

Agricolas de Nicaragua

Producers of Nicaragua

Unidad de Produccion

States Production Unit

Estatal

xu

Autonomous

Universidad Nacional

8 5

Contents

Acknowledgements

IV

Glossary of Spanish Terms Glossary of Organisations

vi viii

Maps Part 1.

2.

V,

161, 164

Somocismo and Sandinismo The Weakness of the Nicaraguan State Independence: The Uncertain Beginning Intervention and the Loss of Statehood Liberal Reform and the US Response The Nicaraguan Economy Before Somoza Liberals, Conservatives and the Marines Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance

1

:

3

4 6 7 1 1

Sandino's Predecessors

15 16

The Crazy Little Army? A Vietnam in Central America The People's Alternative Anti-ImperiaHsm and Social Organisation The Murder of Sandino

1

20 21

23

His Legacy

24 28 28 29 32 34 36 39

The Somozas — Building the Family State Somoza's Rise to Power Dismembering the Opposition The Death of Somoza I The Somoza Empire Dependent Capitalism Regional Integration and Industrialisation Reformism and the New Militarism The 1 967 Massacre 4.

41

43

Protecting the Dynasty

The Army of Occupation US Mihtary Aid to Somoza E.egionaLContral-aad^QmQza\^d^of the Bargain ~~The Mihtary, the Family, and the State~''~~"

An Army IsraeH 5.

Within an

Army

Arms

for the Military Elite Earthquake and After:

The 1972 Somocismo in the 1970s The Earthquake

Somocismo

2

1

in Crisis

46 46 47 48 50 52 55 57 57 58

Xlll

Triumph of the People

From

Class Dictatorship to Family

Crisis

Monopoly: The 62 64 66 68 70

of Bourgeois Rule

Disloyal Competition and Bourgeois Realignment

Economic Crisis The Working Class: Engine of the Revolution Organising the Labour Movement Part 2 Overthrowing the Dictatorship Guerrilla War - People's War

75

6.

Reviving the Broken Thread Choosing the Terrain Pancasan, 1967: The Peasants Take Up Accumulation of Forces Breaking the Silence Somoza's Offensive: The State of Seige

75 78

Arms

80 82 86 88

TheFSLNSphts 7.

The FSLN Takes the Lead, End to the State of Seige

91 1

977-78

102 1

Chamorro Assassinated The January Riots The January Strike Monimbo: The People Without the Vanguard Alfonso Robelo: The Organiser as Politicisn The Practical PoUtics of Class Alliance Insurrection, 1978 The People United The National Palace Attacked: Striking at the Heart The September Insurrection War of Positions and War of Movement Parallel Power The Favourable Moment: Preparing the Final Offensive

FSLN

Unity

Fulfilling the Conditions

10.

The Triumph of Sandinismo The Battle for Nicaragua: A Chronology War on All Fronts Insurrection in Managua Popular Power in Action The New Political Superstructure Ditching the Loyal Friend 19 July: Patria Libre

XIV

00 00

October Offensive: Propaganda for Insurrection

of the System

9

1

The Group of Twelve Response of the Private Sector: National Dialogue

8.

1

04

106 107 108 1 1 1 1 1

13 15 6

120 120 1 24 127 132 137 142 142 148 155 155 157 162 167 1 70 1 73 178

1

1

Contents

The People in Power Introduction Building the New Order Towards the Sandinista State Nationalism and Class Struggle The Economic Inheritance Plan 80: The Initial Economic Strategy

Part 3: 1

.

12.

Accumulation for Whom? The State Sector Socialism and a Mixed Economy ConsoUdating the Economy Revolutionary Democracy and Revolutionary Power

13.

The FSLN and Direct Democracy The Vanguard and the Masses in Victory The Sandinista Defence Committees Democracy Comes In Off the Streets Popular Demands and State PoHcy A New Kind of Elections Towards the Party of the Sandinista Revolution A Strategy for Workers and Peasants

A

People in

Arms

Transforming the Countryside

The Peasantry The Association of Rural Workers Urban Unions and Class Unity Opportunism and Strikes: Unions versus the CST The Battle for Production 14.

15.

Consolidating the Revolution: Five Essays Building Friendships Against Intervention Overcoming the Ideology of Somocismo Cultural Insurrection: The Literacy Crusade The Dialogue between Marxists and Christians Organising Women: AMNLAE The Threat of Counter-Revolution How the Counter- Revolution Works More Revolutionary than Revolution? The Ultra-Left The Robelo Resignation La Prensa: Mouthpiece for Reaction Rallying the Right The Central American Dimension

Postscript Select Bibliography

Index

'

185 1

90

192 196

200 201

205 207 213 216 223 223 230 233 239 244 249 253 257 264

264 268 272 275 281

289 300 300 305 31

316 323 331 331

334 339 343 346 350 360 363 365

XV

PART

1

Somocismo and Sandinismo

l.The Weakness of the Nicaragua!! State

From

the top of a small

visible.

The sprawHng

earthquake,

bombing

its

hill,

the

Loma

de Tiscapa, the whole of Managua

is

by the 1972 scarred by the

capital of Nicaragua, its centre devastated

industrial zones

and working-class barrios

raids of General Anastasio

Somoza Debayle's

still

airforce during the

1979 war of liberation. On Somoza 's maps, the Loma and the area below it had appeared simply as 'Zona Militar\ When the people of Managua arrived there on the morning of 19 July 1979, followed by the first victorious units of their vanguard, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), they broke open the armouries of the defeated National Guard, taking possession of an area no more than one kilometre square in which the whole military strength of the Somoza dictatorship had been concentrated for over

40

years.

Somoza 's father, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, founder of the dynasty all the military installations had been opened with a single master key. On the roof of the old Presidential Palace, damaged in the earthquake, were anti-aircraft batteries. Next to the kitchens, 60 handpicked soldiers In the time of ,

bodyguard of the dictator, on 24-hour alert. Beneath where poHtical prisoners were tortured, on top of stores of explosives which would guarantee the death of opponents in the event of sabotage. When the Sandinistas came to power, the zone contained the Military Academy, artillery emplacements, the 'General Somoza' Armoured Battalion, the Basic Infantry Training School (EEBI) commanded by the dictator's son Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero, the National Guard telecommunications centre, the country's main military stores, the headquarters of the Office of Security. To the rear of the hill, rendered impregnable by the deep crater-lake at its foot, is the large miUtary hospital; to the slept, the personal

the Palace were the cells

of the hill, the massively fortified air-conditioned bunker from which the third Somoza directed his military operations against east side, set into the base

the

FSLN.

A Colombian journalist once asked Somoza Debayle if he had read Gabriel Autumn of the Patriarch,^ the magnificent portrait of a monstrous, decaying Latin American dictator. Potent myths surround dictators. And in a year which also saw the collapse of Amin in Uganda and Garcia Marquez's

the

Shah

in Iran,

much bad journaHsm attempted

to anatomise the vicious-

Somocismo and Sandinismo ness and corruption of the

Somoza

family, as

if

the

members of a dynasty

which had amassed such concentrated economic, poHtical and military power, running Nicaragua Hke a private estate, were fictional characters unrelated to the history which first made them possible, then sustained them, and finally swept them away. The Somoza dictatorship came to power in two stages, with Anastasio Somoza Garcia assuming control of the US-created National Guard in 1933, and then taking over the presidency of Nicaragua three years later. He did so at a time of crisis for United States domination of the country. US intervention and occupation had been almost continuous for a quarter of a century, and US troops — fought to a standstill in Latin America's first major guerfilla war by Augusto Cesar Sandino, from whom the FSLN takes its name — no longer had the will or the capacity to prolong direct military rule. Instead, they sought in the

power would

Somoza family

on the

a local instrument

of domination.

Its

by Central American standards) of the Nicaraguan state, torn apart by intra -oligarchical disputes throughout the 19th century and further undermined by repeated foreign intervention and belated insertion into world capitalist markets. The Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, economically and politically weak as a result, and further hit by the worldwide economic crisis of the 1930s, could offer Uttle resistance to Somoza, while the popular movement was decapitated in 1934 after the massacre of Sandino and his followers on Somoza 's orders. For the 45 years which followed, Somocista power rested on this combination of factors, and was sustained by a repressive apparatus unique in Latin rest

historic debility (even

,

America, turned astutely into a praetorian guard at the service of a single family, and by the guarantee of continuous support from the United States.

Independence: The Uncertain Beginning The atrophied national explains

much

state

which allowed Somoza's

rise

to

power and

of the subsequent class struggle in Nicaragua dates back to the

country's independence from the Spanish Empire. With no organised

opposition to Spanish rule — only the quarrels of tiny elites — and in the absence of a traditional colonial economy geared to mining or agriculture, no solid economic base developed in the 19th century, and no powerful social

group emerged linked to a particular economic activity or poUtical history. the Spaniards abandoned Central America quietly in 1821 they left a power vacuum filled erratically by warring landowners and merchants, soldiers, clergy and foreign adventurers. The factions crystallised into the two antagonistic political parties which dominated Nicaraguan politics for the next 150 years: the Conservatives of Granada and the Liberals of Leon. The Conservatives were aristocratic landowners, cattle ranchers and large merchants, descendants of the colonial military and bureaucratic elites, backed by the Church hierarchy. The Liberals, small landowners and artisans, less influential than their counterparts in the rest of Central America, were

When

,

The Weakness of the Nicaraguan State

wave of Liberalism influenced by English notions of free which had sought briefly and ineffectively to create a Central American federation which would break with colonial stagnation and develop wider export markets. The emergent mercantile class in Nicaragua was ambiguous, part of a regional trade,

demands for free trade but leaning to the banking and moneylending institutions grew up.^ These traditional regional conflicts were particularly acute in Nicaragua, which has the lowest population density of the Central American republics, and did much to prevent the development of a strong and unified national bourgeoisie. The two cities developed independent power structures and economies, using their own separate ports for foreign trade. 'Both cities were tending to Liberalism in

Conservatives as the

its

first

like substitutes for a non-existent national state. '^

Their introverted political

development assured an extraordinary continuity of ruling families, many of whom — like the Chamorros of Granada - figure prominently even now in revolutionary Nicaragua. The lack of a national economic base was made worse by the frequent armed conflicts between oligarchical groups, preventing the progressive expansion of agriculture favouring major export crops like coffee. By the middle of the century, the Liberals were discredited by their association with the North American 'filibuster' William Walker. Walker, an obscure Tennessee adventurer who tried in the 1850s to take personal control of Central America, was brought into Nicaragua to aid the Liberal cause but soon routed by joint Central American resistance. But the Liberals' flirtation with him opened the way for 36 years of uninterrupted Conservative rule from 1857 to 1893, during which affairs of state were conducted in the Club de Granada, the economy stagnated further and the peasant majority were kept in misery by repressive legislation or forced to fight for landowners in useless, unending civil wars. And once foreign eyes began to turn again towards Nicaragua, attracted by the possibilities of a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Conservative Government turned the country into a state at the service of foreign interests. Each intervention, whether British, German or North American, appealed to the Conservatives as a source of commercial spinoffs, while the accompanying treaties and agreements sold off more and more of Nicaragua's sovereignty. The navigable Rio San Juan, which connected with Lake Nicaragua and left only a narrow strip of territory on the Costa Rican border to be excavated, had already appealed to Spanish colonial engineers as a promising site for a canal to export products from Peru and compete for trade with the Far East. To the US Government of the late 19th century, the strategic importance of a canal through the Central American isthmus was clear: it guaranteed political and economic dominance over the whole of Latin America. Although a canal commission appointed by President McKinley opted unanimously for the Nicaraguan site, the USA chose Panama instead in 1903. Nonetheless, Nicaragua's proximity to Panama, and the notorious instability of its governments, kept it prominent

among

the

USA's

strategic interests.

Somocismo and Sandinismo Intervention and the Loss of Statehood While the Conservatives sought alHes in Honduras and El Salvador, the Liberals found military support by recruiting William Walker with offers of land and gold. Having headed a similar military expedition against Northern

Mexico

in 1853, Walker arrived in Nicaragua two years later with his 58-man 'American Phalanx of Immortals', routing Conservative troops in Granada and then turning on his Liberal paymasters with equal ease, demonstrating the incapacity of any Nicaraguan government to defend itself against foreign aggression. Walker installed himself unilaterally as president, contracting

foreign loans which used the territory of Nicaragua as collateral, reinstituting slavery, confiscating Nicaraguan landholdings for redistribution to

US

and declaring English the official language. Although Walker acted essentially as an individual, he received powerful backing from the Southern slave states and immediate diplomatic recognition from the United States Government. But within two years he was overthrown after a series of uprisings in Nicaragua and the assembly of a joint force of other Central Americans and the American railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose Accessory Transit Company had been granted rights of passage through the likely canal route by the Nicaraguan Government in 1849. The English too joined in the effort to oust Walker. Rushing to fill the vacuum left by the departing Spaniards, England extended its military and commercial domination of the Caribbean to the adjacent coasts of Central America, seizing the Guatemalan province of Belize (British Honduras) and occupying the eastern parts of Honduras and Nicaragua. Here it established the 'Mosquito Kingdom' protectorate in 1847, ruled by locally appointed citizens,

but with a British superintendent resident in the Atlantic port town of The pound, not the dollar, was the first currency of foreign domination in post-colonial Nicaragua, both through loans to the government and the uncontrolled influx of English manufactured goods. Although 'kings'

Bluefields.

remain strong on the Costa Atlantica, outright on the part of Britain ended by the 1890s, falling foul of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which claimed the Americas as an exclusive British cultural influences

colonial aspirations

US expansionism in exchange for non-intervention in the colonial of the European powers. The British also came up against a new current of Liberal nationalism at the end of the century; and although they briefly asserted their claims to the Mosquito Coast by landing Royal Marines in Bluefields and the Rio San Juan in 1893, they were ignominiously despatched by Nicaraguan troops of the Liberal president Jose Santos target for

affairs

Zelaya."*

The Monroe Doctrine came into its own. After the slaughter of the North American Indians, the annexation from Mexico of the states of Arizona, CaHfornia, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah, and the discovery of gold in the Sacramento Valley in 1849, it was inevitable that the private commercial ambitions of North American speculators — like the consortium of New York bankers and businessmen who backed Vanderbilt — should

The Weakness of the Nicaraguan State yield to the ambitions of an expansionist

US Government. The

feeble state of

Nicaragua was a fine opportunity to put muscle into the Monroe Doctrine, and British claims to the Caribbean Coast were perceived as an open threat

American imperialism. Naturally, US military adventures and commercial objectives were formalised in a series of treaties, which — with the acquiescence of the Conservatives - placed the country's sovereignty in foreign hands. The 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, over which the Nicaraguan Government was not even consulted, allowed for joint US-UK control of any future canal zone, while the subsequent Cass-Irisarri (1858) and DickinsonAyon (1867) Treaties extended US rights of free transit through Nicaragua, coinciding with the expansion of the US plantation system throughout Central America and the first stirrings of the giant fruit multinationals like the Standard and United Fruit Companies. to nascent

Liberal

Reform and the US Response

The 19th-century

seignorial rule

of the Conservatives,

who

pursued

this anti-

was incapable of providing the major structural reforms needed to respond to the new demands of the Nicaraguan economy. The agricultural base of the economy, centred on coffee, had finally expanded towards the end of the 19th century, bringing with it the ascent of a new class unwilling to be stifled by the archaic Conservative state. The contradiction was resolved after a Liberal revolt led by Jose Santos Zelaya in 1893, opening the way for sixteen years of national development headed by this relatively dynamic new agroexporting bourgeoisie. Zelaya was no democrat (it was reported that in the farcical elections which sustained his dictatoriship, ^campesino voters were given the choice of three candidates: Jose, Santos or Zelaya'^) but he modernised the state, opening roads, railways, port facilities and improved communications networks, in a way which would nationalist course until 1893,

efficiently serve the

new requirements of an economy

exports. Zelaya 's nationaUsm and the

first

oriented to agricultural

attempts to weld together a

coherent state in Nicaragua soon came into open conflict with

When a

the

Panama Canal was

second canal dug

built in

US

in Nicaragua, infuriating the

USA.

His hostiUty to

reactionary Central American governments friendly to Washington

matters worse, and

when he began

policies.

1903, Zelaya investigated ways of having

make

made

commercial overtures to Great Britain and Japan, the North Americans began to look for ways of bringing about his downfall. In 1908, Zelaya contracted a large loan from to

significant

the British Ethelburg finance syndicate to construct a railway, against the direct opposition of US Secretary of State Knox, and Washington accused Zelaya of infringing the Monroe Doctrine by entering into such close relationships with foreign powers. The following year, Zelaya went too far: a

Conservative uprising in the Atlantic port of Bluefields engaged two

Americans to sabotage government executed, giving the

USA the

ships.

pretext

it

The two were captured and

needed.

Knox

issued a furious note

Somocismo and Sandinismo condemning Zelaya for \indermining the democratic institutions' of Nicaragua and broke off diplomatic relations. Four hundred US Marines

moved

in to protect the Conservative revolt,

and American military and

diplomatic pressure brought the Liberal experiment to an end.

The Knox Note made explicit the US right to intervene directly in affairs. The era of the Monroe Doctrine had given way to 'big

Nicaraguan

stick' diplomacy. When the Marines landed in Bluefields, the Americans were following a new pattern of intervention already estabUshed in Cuba and Puerto Rico (1898), continued in Honduras (1905) and Panama (1908), and intensified with the successful Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the resulting US obsession with having reliable anti-Mexican friends in the Central American isthmus. The overthrow of Zelaya's presidency was achieved with a spectacular blend of diplomatic offensive, military strength and North American private capital. The Conservative uprising had requested, and received, armed support in the form of 400 Marines, who arrived — in the time-honoured phrase - to 'protect American lives and property'. It was additionally financed by $1 million from American businessmen, including substantial contributions from the US-owned Rosario and Light Mines Company, for whom Secretary of State Knox — curiously enough - was legal counsel. The

USA refused to grant recognition to the Liberal Government of Jose Madriz, which succeeded that of Zelaya. Madriz's resignation was forced within the year by the mere presence of US troops, without a shot being fired, and Washington duly installed Adolfo Diaz, a Conservative accountant employed by the same US-owned Rosario and Light Mines Company, as president of Nicaragua. Washington was well aware of the weakness of its designated puppet, and through his regime American penetration of Nicaragua was child's play.

The Liberal reform had destroyed the relevance of the Conservative its reinstallation in power defied history. The expansion of coffee production had meant a radical reorganisation of agriculture and thus new patterns of land ownership. Coffee brought institutional and political reforms which guaranteed the continuity of foreign trading links, and Conservative economic interests were unable to sustain the dynamic of an economy now geared to providing raw materials for the industrial world. ^ Any pretence that intervention had been designed to prevent renewed Conservative-Liberal civil war was soon shattered, and after the stability of the Zelaya regime open conflict again broke out. By the end of 191 1 Diaz was incapable of controlling Liberal and nationalist opposition and claims for limited bourgeois democracy, and he invoked his only real power base in a note to the US Embassy: 'The serious dangers which beset us can only be destroyed by skilful and efficient aid from the United States, like that which produced such good results in Cuba. For this reason it is my intention, through a treaty with the American Government, to modify or enlarge the Constitution permitting the United States oligarchy as a class, and

,

.

.

.

to intervene in our internal affairs in order to maintain peace.''' His

8

The Weakness of the Nicaraguan State impotence, and that of the Conservatives as a class, made ever deeper American penetration of Nicaraguan affairs inevitable. Those who benefited most directly from the Diaz regime were US bankers, who rapidly assumed control of the country's finances. In the same year, a group of New York bankers granted Diaz a loan to pay off his British creditors, spinning Nicaragua deeper into the web of economic dependency and simultaneously staving off the threat of renewed British involvement.

The US-backed Conservative order was brutally reasserted in 1912, when General Benjamin Zeledon, formerly a minister in Zelaya's cabinet, led a

When they arrived, movement an entirely new phenomenon: the embryo an army of patriots largely composed of peasants and

rebellion against Diaz. Again Diaz called in the Marines.

they found in Zeledon 's

of popular resistance, poor artisans. Zeledon quickly controlled the towns of Masaya, Jinotepe and Leon, and even laid siege to Managua before betrayal by a Conservative general cornered his troops in the hilltop fortress of El Coyotepe above

Masaya. North American troops stormed the hill, killing 'El Indio' Zeledon and, according to Gregorio Selser, massacring more than 600 of his followers.^ The example of Zeledon*s resistance was not forgotten by the

FSLN, who gave

name to their Frente Sur (Southern Front) during the Somoza. With Pax Americana again imposed at gunpoint, most of the US Marines (who by this time had grown to an occupation force of 2,700) returned home, leaving a small Legation Guard of 100, sufficient reminder of who was running the country. The economic implications of American rule also became clear. As well as having its European debts cancelled by new loans, the Diaz government received working capital and stood by while the Americans appointed a controller of customs revenues and assumed effective control of Nicaraguan finances, handing over US-stipulated sums to the Nicaraguan Government on a monthly basis. Customs revenues, the railways, his

offensive against

and the national steamship company were offered as security against loans US banking house of Brown Brothers and Seligman, and American administrators were duly appointed to each of these utilities. 51% of shares in the Banco Nacional were handed over to US bankers, and the tax laws and currency overhauled according to Washington's contracted at punitive rates from the

By the time of the presidency of General Emiliano Chamorro, who came to power in 1916, financial control had been neatly formalised in a three-man committee composed of the Nicaraguan Minister of Finance and two North Americans, of whom one was a State Department nominee. The arrangement was known as the 'Lansing Plan'. Even this paled, however, by comparison with the latest canal treaty. Rarely can any government had been party to such a humiliating document as the 1916 Chamorro-Bryan Treaty, which gave the United States exclusive rights in perpetuity to construct a canal on Nicaraguan territory, as well as a renewable 99-year lease on the Corn Islands off the Atlantic Coast and rights to build a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca, which separates Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. In exchange the Nicaraguan Conservatives received $3 million, which went

wishes.

Somocismo and Sandinismo straight to

New York

to pay off interest on loans.

The handover of

Nicaragua was complete.

The United States wanted more, however. When Emiliano Chamorro showed poHtical ambitions of his own, attempting to bypass the Constitution and have himself elected to a second presidential term in 1920, his plans were vetoed by the State Department, which sent in an academic from Princeton

Under US supervision, worked smoothly in 1925, but instead of restoring the Conservative Party to power the election brought in an unstable coalition of dissident Conservatives and Liberals. The new president was the Conservative Carlos Solorzano, and his deputy the Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa. Among the supporters of Sacasa's candidature was an emergent Liberal called Anastasio Somoza Garcia. As soon as the new government came to office, the military weakness of Solorzano and the fragility of his regime moved University to redraft the country's electoral laws. electoral fraud

new president of an agreement made with of a small and efficient US-trained military force, similar to those being set up under US supervision in Haiti, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. It would be known as the National Guard. the United States to remind the

his predecessor: the creation

The

Nicaragua!!

Economy

Before Somoza

The economy and class structure of mid-1 920s Nicaragua was strongly influenced by the development of a single export crop: coffee. Basing itself on the development of coffee, the agroexporting bourgeoisie had finally enabled Nicaragua to make its late entry into the world capitalist economy. Production had in fact begun in the middle of the previous century but had grown slowly in comparison to other Central American countries. Even so, it grew to represent 50% of Nicaragua's export earnings in the two decades between 1920 and 1940, and the economic power of the traditional monopolistic traders of Granada was no match for the potential vitality of the *coffee bourgeoisie'. Their first market was Great Britain, later superseded by the USA, although Britain continued to exert indirect influence until the 1930s by virtue of its role in determining world market prices. Not only was coffee Nicaragua's main export earner until the 1940s; it was also the only substantial economic activity which generated capital within the country. The other main raw materials — bananas, rubber and gold — were produced in enclaves owned by US capital, and their sale remained separate from the national economy, weakening its base still further. In the whole of Central America, the banana companies operated as states within the with their own police force, shops and even currency.^ They enjoyed

state,

their

own independent

transport infrastructure and distribution network.

was

The

companies' operations were tax-free and their decision-making centred abroad, unconnected to either the productive or the poHtical apparatus of the Nicaraguan state. Such a mono-product economy was of course vulnerable to world price participation of local capital

10

insignificant, the

The Weakness of the Nicaraguan State where the world capitalist of civil war. Coffee prices plummeted from $458 per ton in 1926 to $142 in 1938. The reaction of the coffee bourgeoisie was to slash production costs, mainly by cutting wages or replacing them with payment in kind, and simultaneously to increase the fluctuations, acutely so in the case of Nicaragua,

depression coincided with the internal

crisis

land area under cultivation to compensate for falling prices.

The

drastic

measures required to maintain profits brought economic collapse and universal misery for the rural masses. The demands of a collapsing market

emphasised too the peculiarity of all Central American rural societies. Capitalist expansion meant, paradoxically, turning the clock back to impose semi-feudal social relations between the landowner and the rural workforce, relations which remained the norm in much of the Nicaraguan countryside until the 1979 Revolution. Extending land use meant accelerating the expulsion of peasants

from prime

agricultural land, continuing a cycle formalised

law by Conservative regimes of the 1870s and 1880s. Coffee owners, having stolen the peasants' land, now needed a large plantation workforce permanently on hand. So these workers were partly salaried and partly paid in

and given small subsistence plots to work. The combination left them and to the patron for Hfe.^° The importance of coffee also reinforced the unequal development of Nicaragua. The already distorted concentration of population, power and state infrastructure was made worse because the climate and fertile soils best suited to coffee production were also centred on the Pacific coastal belt and the highlands of the Norte Central. Coffee growing spread through the mountainous departamentos of Jinotega and Matagalpa, while the highest yields were in Carazo, Granada and Masaya, heavily populated areas close to Managua. By the late 1920s Nicaragua's fate as a suppHer of agricultural exports to United States capitalism was sealed. This economic model produced a backward dependent capitalism, where power rested with a small bourgeoisie whose economic interests coincided at the local level with US designs for Nicaragua. It meant of course that the model imposed by American control carried with it many of the seeds of later problems for US foreign policy. The political aspirations of a class which might have injected dynamic capitalist growth into Nicaragua - expressed by the Zelaya Liberal Government - had been shown to be by definition incompatible with American interests, and had promptly been aborted. Zelaya's in kind,

tied to the land

very nationalism, given

US intervention, only

national development of the

By

the

economy and

mid 1920s renewed

civil

guaranteed the further anti-

debility of the state.

war was imminent. With the subversion of

bourgeois nationalism, the war would bring forth Nicaragua's experience of radical nationalism, the

first real

popular alternative to imperialism and local domination. It would however end with the installation of Somocismo. The Somoza dictatorship which followed the war was a product, not a cause of foreign domination.^ ^ Or in the words of one FSLN militant: first

,

'Somoza didn't bring

in iYiQyanquis.

Dictatorial capitalism

was secondary,

The yanquis brought a necessary

in

Somoza.'

instrument of imperialist

11

Somocismo and Sandinismo control.

By

this logic,

and the related

internal logic

which made super-

exploitation of the workforce the only possible response for a bourgeoisie

robbed of 'normal development', dictatorship became the only workable form of capitalism in Nicaragua. ^^ And throughout the long nightmare of Somocismo, Nicaragua's dominant classes passively accepted the economic and strategic role mapped out for them by the United States. First, however, a seven-year long war had to be fought.

Liberals, Conservatives,

and the Marines

The coalition government of Solorzano and Sacasa was an unworkable marriage of conflicting class interests, in effect no more than a holding operation to stave off the inevitable civil war. As the government quickly foundered, Emiliano Chamorro returned in October 1925 to overthrow Solorzano, purging the regime of Liberals and trying to set up a 'pure' Conservative Government of traditional cut. But this style of Conservatism was no longer appealing to Washington, and Chamorro made the fatal error of attempting to bring the fledgling National Guard under his personal control. The move incurred Washington's rage, and the USA invoked its Peace and Friendship Treaty with Central America, which refused to recognise governments which had seized power through a coup d'etat. As before, the withdrawal of American support guaranteed the downfall of a Nicaraguan government. In its place, the United States resurrected Adolfo Diaz, the mining accountant and president of a decade earlier, in their efforts to restore a working model of Conservatism; but by this time the country was in open crisis. Local Liberal revolts sprang up in different parts of the country, one of them headed by Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who had now adopted the title of 'General'. On Diaz's appointment, the Liberals promptly set up a 'constitutional' government in the Atlantic port of Puerto Cabezas in December 1926. The Vuerra Constitucionalista\ as the war became known, assured the final submersion of the Conservative ohgarchy as a significant political force. Henceforth their influence would be restricted to that of acquiescent minority opposition to the Somoza dynasty, and the economic power of those great Conservative families which had amassed durable fortunes. Fearing Mexican 'Bolshevism' and possible support for the Liberal rebels, the USA decided that Nicaragua was a test case for regional geopolitics. Early in 1927 Coolidge assured Congress that he had conclusive evidence of Mexican involvement, and repeated that no power except the USA had the right to exert influence in Central America. There was only one possible response; and US Marines duly disembarked at Corinto in January. This time the force was a large one: 215 officers commanding 865 Marines and 3,900 soldiers, accompanied by arms suppHes to the Diaz Government. But the Americans recognised that they were backing a loser in the Conservative Party. With the Zelaya model of LiberaHsm equally unpalatable, their strategy depended on fostering the division which now existed within the ranks of the

12

I

The Weakness of the Nicaraguan State Liberal opposition, weeding out the nationalist traditions inherited

from

Zelaya, and building a Liberal pattern of economic development compatible

with

US

interests.

The

trick

was to identify

specific sectors of the Liberal

leadership

who would

now took

charge of denationalising the Liberal Party. Sacasa too placed

prove amenable, and they found their man in Sacasa, the head of the 'constitutional' government, and Jose Maria Moncada. Moncada had sided in 1909 with the Conservative overthrow of Zelaya and himself at the orders of the In

one

US Government.

essential aspect the Constitutionalist

War was not

a simple re-run

of earlier Liberal -Conservative conflicts. The Liberal army was composed on

one hand of elements of the bourgeoisie, and on the other of a sizeable group of workers and peasants. This group had the elements of a new class consciousness, and prominent among them were the mineworkers of the north-east, the most coherent sector of a still undeveloped working class. It was the presence of these forces which created the conditions for transforming the conflict into an anti-imperiaUst war of national liberation. The Americans appreciated this nascent working-class and peasant miHtancy, and their strategy rested on the ability of Sacasa and Moncada to stifle it. By 1927, not even US military support was able or willing to prop up the Conservatives. Instead, the Americans resorted to a pact between the two parties. A special presidential envoy named Henry L. Stimson arrived from Washington to impose terms: a ceasefire; general amnesty the handover of all arms to the US Marines until such time as they could organise the Nicaraguan Guard efficiently under US supervision and with US officers; and US-supervised elections in the following year.^^ Diaz and Moncada promptly ;

signed the Pact of Espino Negro and both of Nicaragua's political parties

accepted subservience to United States domination. At that Constitutionalist

War became

moment

a class -based revolutionary war, led

the

by the only

and recognise that United States imperialism He was the 31 -year-old Augusto Cesar of the war had remained constant since his decision

Liberal officer to reject the Pact

was

at the heart

of Nicaragua's

Sandino. Sandino's vision

crisis.

to fight in May 1926, on his return to Nicaragua after several years of working abroad. His experience was vital to the formation of his class consciousness: as a warehouseman at the Montecristo sugar mill in Honduras, owned by the Honduras Sugar and Distilling Company as a banana plantation worker for the United Fruit Company in Guatemala; and as an oilfield worker for the South Pennsylvania Oil Company and the Huasteca Petroleum Company, both in Mexico. It had given him firsthand knowledge of the reality of American imperialism in Central America.*^ Under Sandino's leadership, the war against US intervention was Nicaragua's first organised questioning of bourgeois power structures, and gave shape for the first time to a long — if sporadic — tradition of spontaneous popular revolt. ;

13

.

.

Somocismo and Sandinismo

Notes Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch, trans. Gregory Rabassa; (London, Jonathan Cape, 1977). 2. Edelberto Torres, Interpretacion del Desarrollo Social Centroamericano (San Jose, Costa Rica, EDUCA, 5th edn, 1 977), pp. 38-43, 46-5 1

1

Sergio Rsimiiez^ El Pensamiento Vivo de Sandino (San Jose, EDUCA, 5th edn, 1980), p. vii. 4. Torres, op. cit., pp. 44-6. 5. Quoted in Richard Millett, Guardianes de la Dinastia (San Jose, EDUCA, 3.

6. 7.

8.

1979), p. 36. Torres, op. c/r., pp.

62— 7.

Quoted in Jaime Wheelock Roman, Imperialismo y Dictadura - Crisis de una Formacion Social (Mexico City, Siglo XXI, 1975), p. 1 10. Gregorio Stlser, El Pre -Sandino - Benjamin Zeledon (Havana, Casa de Americas No. 117, 1979), Ramirez, op. c/r., p. xiv.

las

9.

10. Torres, op. 11.

cit.,

p. 59.

pp. 80—2.

Humh&Tto OrtQga, 50 Anos de Lucha Sandinista (Miineo,n. p., 1976), pp. 75-7.

Lopez, Orlando Nunez, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and del Somocismo y la Lucha Sandinista en Nicaragua (San Jose, EDUCA, 1979), pp. 18-19.

12. Julio

La Caida

13. Millett, op. 14.

14

cit., p.

Ramirez, op.

cit.,

77. p. xxxi.

P.

Brenes,

2.

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance

Sandino 's Predecessors Only

4%

mestizos

of modern Nicaraguans are pure-blooded Indians. By contrast, the — those of mixed Spanish and Indian blood — account for three-

The growth oimestizaje was rapid in the colonial by the Spanish colonisers as an instrument of 'class conciliation' to legitimise 300 years of segregation, slavery and brutal exploitation of Nicaragua's original inhabitants.' Today, only two Indian quarters of the population.

period, and was used

settlements remain in the country's principal towns: the barrios of

Monimbo

was no accident that these were the first centres of popular insurrection against Somoza in 1978. They were inheriting a militant tradition recognised earUer by Sandino: *I am a Nicaraguan and I feel proud that Indian American blood runs in my veins.' The Spanish Empire had tried to turn the militancy of Nicaragua's Indians to its own advantage, drafting thousands of them to fight in the conquest of the Andean countries. But the Indians remained intractable to the brutal discipline of colonial rule. Although their revolts were primarily local, and did in

Masaya and Subtiava

in

Leon; and

it

not represent a movement capable of dislodging Spanish rule, they were marked by an insurrectional character rooted in the most exploited classes,

and therefore quite distinct from the

cabalistic opposition of

emergent

elites.

The Subtiava Indians fought the Spaniards in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in 1811-12 Indian insurrections, armed with sticks and machetes, became generalised in Leon, Masaya, Granada and Rivas. In both the 1820s and 1840s Indian uprisings continued. By the middle of the century there were stirrings of guerrilla activity in the northern mountains of Las Segovias, where Sandino later fought; in 1856 insurrections in Ometepe and elsewhere against Walker's filibusters; in 1881 a prolonged offensive by peasants around Matagalpa against the theft of traditional farmlands by the oligarchy. And finally, Sandino's most recent inspiration: the resistance of 'El Indio' Zeledon in Masaya against vastly superior US forces. When Zeledon was killed in 1912, his body was paraded in public. The 17-year-old Sandino saw the procession as it passed near his home village of Niquinohomo. The sight left a profound impression on him. EHiring the United States military occupation, the insurrectional tradition

15

Somocismo and Sandinismo grew. Between 1913 and 1924, there were ten or more armed uprisings against Conservative rule, and on each occasion US troops imposed martial law. In the same period, incipient working-class organisation added a

new

dimension to the struggle. The first major strikes took place against USowned companies: the Cuyamel Fruit Company in 1921 and the Cukra Development Company in 1922-3, both of which ended in massacres of workers; later there were strikes in the Bragman's Bluff Lumber Company and the mining enterprises of Siuna and Bonanza in the north-east. In 1926, strikes against the banana companies of the Atlantic Coast turned into fullscale armed uprisings. Each North American economic enclave was hit. To grasp one reason for the success of the class alliances formed by the

FSLN in

it is essential to dispel the myth that all the antistemmed from the exploited classes. The Liberal

the late 1970s,

Conservative uprisings

bourgeoisie also resorted to arms after the overthrow of Zelaya and the

imposition of Conservative rule. Later, when the Somocista mutation of Liberalism assumed power, Conservative dissidents also took up arms. The frustration of democratic openings by the USA made armed insurrection a

artificial

historical possibility for

The Crazy

Little

important sectors of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie.

Army^

4 May 1980 saw the inauguration of the Council of State in Nicaragua, the legislative body installed by the Sandinista Government as the 'solid political expression of national unity', in which *the popular masses and their organised struggle continue to be the principal source of power and revolutionary change'.^ The date was designated Dia de la Dignidad Nacional (Day of National Dignity), the date on which Sandino had rejected the pact signed by Stimson and Moncada at Espino Negro in 1927. On his arrival, Stimson (who had served as Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Taft) made his position clear. He confessed that he found military men easier to understand than politicians and declared that Nicaraguan politicians were no longer capable of running their country. In the soldier Moncada he had an ideal instrument for guaranteeing American interests in Nicaragua. Although the Somoza regime was still nine years away, the pact of Espino Negro signified the establishment of a military dictatorship with no social base. Moncada was the man who prepared the ground for Somocismo. Sandino had left his job in Mexico almost a year earlier, in May 1926. He made his way immediately to the northern mines of San Albino, assembling the 30-man nucleus of his army, adding another 45 sympathisers from the banana fields of Puerto Cabezas and Prinzapolca on the Atlantic Coast, and using his savings to equip his force with rudimentary arms. His arrival also

coincided with the armed uprising of other Atlantic Coast banana workers,

who

seized the Conservative barracks at Bluefields.

In this first, 'Constitutionalist' phase of the war, Sandino

employed the

conventional tactics of a regular army, but early military defeats and the

16

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance terrain in which he was fighting led him to adopt - and master - the tactics of guerrilla warfare. After his rejection of Espino Negro, he withdrew to his mountain stronghold of El Chipote, and on 2 September 1927 put his name

to the founding

document of his

'crazy little army', the Ejercito Defensor

(Army

Defence of the National was followed by that of hundreds of other literate soldiers, now highly disciplined in columns commanded by generals, mostly natives of the northern mountains of Las Segovias, but with a sprinkling of Central American intemationaUsts. El Chipote was an inaccessible mountain peak, permanently wreathed in cloud, surrounded by ravines and with no visible paths of access that the American troops could detect. Here Sandino built a complex of palm-thatch living quarters, food and armament stores, corrals for horses and livestock, tailors' shops and bootmakers, munitions and arms workshops. Danli, a small town just across the nearby Honduran border, served as a communications centre with the outside world. It was from El Chipote that Sandino's first frontal military attacks were launched. The first major offensive after Espino Negro was an assault on the northern garrison of Ocotal in July, where troops of the newly formed National Guard were entrenched. By this time, Sandino could already rally a force of several hundred for a single attack, but arms were still lacking. Many carried only machetes. After a twelve-hour siege, the most powerful US weapon was called in: aerial bombing destroyed much of Ocotal and inflicted heavy losses on Sandino's men. The Americans found Sandino's increasing control over the north impossible to tolerate and ordered the destruction of El Chipote. Massive air strikes were launched against the hill, which was surrounded by Marines and National Guardsmen, but when US forces reached the summit they found nothing but a ring of straw dummies wearing the red and black kerchieves of the EDSN. After Ocotal and the later military reverse of Telpaneca, Sandino realised that the United States possessed a number of weapons which made regular warfare difficult: superior arms, sophisticated military tactics and airpower. But to compensate for this, Sandino could count on a weapon which the Americans could never possess: an intimate knowledge of his chosen terrain. His ability to escape with his entire army and supplies from El Chipote, in the face of overpowering enemy forces, showed that the Americans would never defeat him in a guerrilla war fought on his own territory. The FSLN later took the lesson profoundly to heart: never fight the enemy on their de

la

Soberania Nacional de Nicaragua

Sovereignty of Nicaragua:

own

EDSN), His

in

signature

terms.'*

American mines of La Luz y Los USA was capable of. The US air force destroyed the villages of Murra, Ojoche, Naranjo and Quiboto. Air strikes became the pillar of American strategy, and a force of six Vought Corsairs, seven Loening flying boats, and five three-engined Fokker bombers was deployed: a formidable display of aerial power for the 1920s and for such a limited theatre of operations.^ Sandino himself gave an account of In April 1928 Sandino captured the

Angeles, and saw at once the response the

17

Somocismo and Sandinismo

wounded are dying for the lack of medical treatment for wounds they have received from the bombing and machine-gun attacks

their effect: 'Our

the ... are

I am talking not only of soldiers, but of civilians. Among these there many women and children, since the enemy aircraft are doing more

damage to the

villages than to our trenches. Ciudad Vieja, Guanacaste and San Albino have been reduced to smouldering ruins.'^ Sandino's account hints at the Americans' inability to hit the Sandinista army effectively for all the weight of military hardware. The guerrilla campaign began in the mountains and rain forests of Las Segovias, countryside which might have been designed for guerrilla warfare. Sandino employed a flexible blend of tactics, alternating attacks on military garrisons with ambushes of US columns in the mountains. As the war progressed, guerrilla action spread out from Las Segovias to cover the entire northern and central regions of Nicaragua, and the number of armed actions increased proportionately. By 1932, the Sandinista army registered 176 military encounters with American forces in the course of the year. ,

A

Vietnam

in Central

America

United States intervention in Nicaragua shares many of the characteristics of the later war in Vietnam. In addition to the specifics of previous American involvement in Nicaragua, the arguments used to justify a full-scale military intervention cast Mexico in the role of international communist conspirator and saw the whole of Central America as vulnerable to a domino effect in a region where only US imperiahst hegemony was permissible. Enormous destruction was wrought on a small country by sophisticated military technology and counter-insurgency operations, and most of this was borne by the peasant population. Most important, the USA suffered defeat (and again sought to justify it as ^withdrawal with honour') at the hands of nationalism, mass popular opposition, a highly intelligent guerrilla movement rooted in the people, and the unpopularity of the war at home.^

bombing raids were used even before Sandino was identified as main threat. When Liberal troops took Chinandega in February 1927, the town was retaken by Conservative forces with American air support, and much of the city was reduced to rubble. The USA subsequently brought in new Curtiss bombers because of their greater bomb capacity. In the countryside, 'neutral zones' were established, and the cruelty of both the US Marines and the new National Guard became notorious. The uncompromising methods of the Marines were consciously used by the USA as a propaganda weapon, epitomised by the widely circulated photograph of a Marine lieutenant holding the severed head of a Sandinista combatant. The most classic form of 'Vietnamisation' was a programme to create what might later have been called 'strategic hamlets'. The plan was not in fact devised by the American Government but by the National Guard commander of Ocotal. Moncada approved the idea of a forced evacuation of peasants in the Airforce

the

18

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance departamentos of Nueva Segovia and Jinotega, where Sandino enjoyed massive support. Many local peasants had joined the guerrilla, and thousands of others were active sympathisers. Farms were burned down, crops and animals destroyed, and peasants transferred to concentration camps where, according to an American report, more than 200 died in 1929 of starvation and exposure. Anyone left in the target zones was treated as an enemy. While government propaganda spoke (as it would again in the 1960s and 1970s) of peasants fleeing from Sandinista terror, the repression was in fact the best possible recruiting drive for Sandino's army. Those peasants who did not join the EDSN flocked into the cities to tell of the National Guard's atrocities, and the image of the new military force was permanently scarred. Marine air strikes similarly only served to swell Sandino's forces, by increasing peasant hostihty to the US presence and failing miserably in their military objectives. Sandino specialised in diversionary attacks which drew forth useless bombing raids — the only American response to the impotence of their ground forces, bogged down in unfamiliar country and ceaselessly undermined by the steady flow of intelligence about troop movements which Sandino received from the local population. Sandino profited as well from the hopeless splits within the enemy over the tactics needed to defeat him, and of course each side - the USA, Nicaraguan Liberals and Conservatives — proposed options which accorded with their own longer-term plans. As the Americans stuck to their proposals for a National Guard independent of either political party, Diaz and Chamorro for the Conservatives and Moncada for the Liberals favoured a strengthened Nicaraguan force which knew the country. As the Americans knew only too well, this would mean troops dedicated to supporting the poHtical ambitions of one party or the other in the 1928 elections. The result deepened the contradictions of United States policy. They could not accept either partisan force, and so the bulk of combat duties fell to the Marines who were visibly unable to defeat Sandino. The war became a nightmare for them: *The well trained and elegantly uniformed yanqui soldiers could fmd only one phrase to describe it: "damned country". Rains, mosquitoes, swamps, swollen rivers, wild animals, the horror of suddenly falling into an ambush, fevers, an always invisible enemy.'® Having come in ostensibly 'to protect American lives and property', the Marines were often forced to destroy targets, like the American-owned San Albino mine, to prevent its falling into Sandino's hands. Marine casualties mounted. In the USA, a powerful anti-war movement grew and Sandino assumed the stature of a romantic hero. Cecil B. DeMille even approached the State Department for permission - promptly denied — to make a film about the guerrilla leader of Las Segovias. Opposition to the war within the USA took many forms: hostility from the pubHc to the cost of defending Wall Street's interests during the Depression; the pointless loss of American lives; the courageous work of a handful of journalists like Carleton Beals of The Nation', diVid finally open conflict within the Senate. The Democratic Party opposed intervention in its 1928 election platform and there was not even

19

Somocismo and Sandinismo unanimity among Hoover's Republicans.^ The new National Guard was forced even closer to the heart of American strategy: if public opinion would not allow them to dominate Nicaragua directly, then they would do so by proxy.

The People's

Alternative

we shall have our victory in Nicaragua, and with it the fuse of the ' '"proletarian explosion " will be lit against the imperialists of the world. 'Very soon

(Sandino)^^

The brutality of American troops in a country they could not understand heightened what was already a favourable moment for the upsurge of a powerSandino's war was, however, of a strong industrial proletariat. Although the initial participation of the northern miners was an important stimulus, it was essentially a peasants' war. Industrial development came very late to Nicaragua, and in the 1920s the small proletariat was based in only three sectors, each controlled by US capital. These were the miners, the banana plantation workers, and the labourers with the sawmills and lumber companies, all located in the jungles of the Atlantic Coast, with the exception of small gold mines in the western departamento of Leon. Their first stirrings of independent class organisation showed themselves towards the mid-1920s. Within five years their miHtancy increased as they suffered the worst effects of the Depression, but they remained numerically small and geographically isolated. Endemic unemployment and the problem of land were both ful people's struggle against oligarchical rule.

conducted

in the absence

aggravated by the economic

crisis.

As world coffee

prices

coffee production was paralysed and famine resulted

slumped

among

in 1929,

the peasants and

At the same time, the Pis Pis mines and the Nicaraguan down, and a severe banana blight swept through the Nicaraguan plantations, forcing hundreds of workers into unemployment and starvation. The first working-class party in Nicaragua's history — agricultural labourers.

Lumber Company

closed

the Partido de los Trabajadores Nicaraguenses (Nicaraguan Workers' Party:

PTN) - was formed by

the end of the decade, and threw

Sandino. Socialist ideas circulated for the

first

its

support behind

time.

All these factors helped to swell Sandino's army and determine its class composition. His own vision of the war was crucial. Born the son of a small farmer (who had been arrested for his opposition to the Chamorro-Bryan Treaty) and a domestic servant, Sandino's experience of work in Mexico had

brought him into contact with the militant trade unions of the railway and oilfield workers, and on his arrival at the San Albino mine he had devoted as much time to encouraging trade-union organisation as to recruiting miners for the armed struggle. His nationalism, however, made him reject what he perceived as 'foreign' political models, and while he welcomed the solidarity of political supporters abroad he resented any attempts they made to link his movement to international socialist or communist currents, and criticised any failure — whether from the Quakers or the Anti-Imperialist League — to

20

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance understand the nationalist basis of the Nicaraguan war. Until Espino Negro he believed that the popular forces under his command could be a component part of a struggle led by the bourgeoisie, but after Moncada's betrayal he vigorously asserted the independence of working-class and peasant organisation.

Sandino employed rigorous

criteria for

accepting

EDSN. He demanded people who would continue

new members of the

to fight with determination

during a protracted war in difficult conditions and who had an intimate knowledge of local geography. In practice, this meant selecting campes/Vzos,

who

in the first place had the greatest motivation for joining the 'You see, we are not soldiers,' he would tell a Spanish journalist. "We are of the people, we are armed citizens.'^* The result was a flexible and disciplined force which could not be clearly distinguished from the peasant population as a whole. Because of the lack of arms, thousands of campesino 'irregulars' were prevented from joining the fighting except in the most important battles, but they provided a logistical support network throughout the areas which Sandino liberated. Others formed a wellstructured intelligence and security service; the orphans of combatants and peasants killed in the bombing and National Guard raids formed a special guerrilla corps of 13- to 16-year-olds for missions behind American lines; numerous women joined Sandino's army, like Conchita Alday (killed by US troops in 1927), Maria Altamirano, and Sandino's wife Blanca Arauz, who took charge of communications; urban supporters in Matagalpa, Jinotega and other cities provided information about troop and aircraft movements; an international brigade was formed by volunteers from a dozen Central and South American countries. The peasant army, like the FSLN 'from the people and for the people', resisted United States aggression in this way, bound together by a strict code of miHtary discipline, for seven years.

those

struggle.

Anti-Imperialism and Social Organisation

Vn

one of those days I said to my friends that if there were a hundred men Nicaragua who loved it as much as I, our country would restore its absolute sovereignty, placed in peril by the y an qui empire. (Sandino)'^ in

'

On

1

January 1933 the

US

forces withdrew, unable to win a military

victory. In their place they left the National Guard, having appointed

Somoza Garcia as its first Nicaraguan commander. On 2 February Sandino accepted a ceasefire and disarmament^^ and withdrew to WiwiU in Las Segovias with a hundred soldiers to guarantee his security during the coming peace negotiations. His terms for peace, which synthesised the basic elements of his poHtical thought, were unacceptable to Sacasa and the United States. Sandino called for an end to foreign intervention in the National Guard; the calling of a Pan-American conference to revoke the ChamorroBryan canal treaty; and the establishment of a large new departamento Anastasio

21

Somocismo and Sandinismo from Las Segovias eastwards to the Atlantic Coast. It would be by an independent Sandinista military force, and would allow Sandino's followers to put into effect the forms of social organisation which had crystallised in liberated zones during the war. Sandino was no political theorist. In Sergio Ramirez's description, 'His thought was more the result of his daily experience as a military leader in the war of resistance The circumstances of the struggle moulded his thinking.'^"* But practical poHtics made it necessary to break United States influence over Nicaraguan affairs and this led him to favour a broad alliance of progressive forces against the anti-nationalism of the two traditional parties. For a while during the 1933 peace negotiations he approved the idea of a third party (the Partido Autonomista) as a political alternative, though stretching

controlled

.

.

.

without ever formally breaking his own links with the Liberals. In his insistence on guaranteed national sovereignty and an end to poUtical and economic dependency on the USA, he understood very well that the physical withdrawal of US Marines changed nothing, and his proposal for a national state based on redistribution of land in the interests of the peasantry soon found a new adversary in the National Guard. This model of Sandino's was already taking shape. At the height of the war in 1932, the zone of his guerrilla operations covered ten of Nicaragua's sixteen Departamentos: Zelaya, Chontales, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Nueva Segovia, Esteli, Managua, Leon, Chinandega and Rivas. His army of 21 columns and 6,000 men actually controlled an area bounded by the

Honduran border

in the north, Puerto Cabezas in the east, Chichigalpa in the west and the shores of Lake Nicaragua in the south. Military columns controlled the civil organisation of each zone: the organisation of agricultural production throu^ cooperatives, taxation and basic literacy classes for peasants and soldiers. By 1928 a kind of provisional government operated, minting its own currency from local gold mines and running an independent communications network (not purely military) with telephone and radio equipment captured from American troops. Taxes were levied on landowners who remained in the liberated areas, although many in the north left their lands and attempted to blame the collapse of local economic activity during the crisis of the 1930s on Sandinista activity. With the expulsion of the Marines, Sandino set about refining his *state within a state' in the northern

and the Rio Coco. Peasant cooperatives marketed their produce on the Atlantic Coast, harvests of tobacco were sold locally and gold panned in the Rio Coco was even sent to Managua for sale. Above all, Sandino recognised the significance of the land question in Nicaragua, Although he never openly questioned capitalism (merely insisting that it should exist in a form which meant that *the worker should be neither humiliated or exploited') he did favour state ownership of the land. In the north he had rich virgin farmland at his disposal on the banks of the Rio Coco, and he believed that the area might produce the meat and cereal crops which Nicaragua at that time imported. This social project, although limited in scope, came into direct conflict with the land ownership patterns forests of Wiwili

agricultural

22

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance of the dominant classes, who had already been antagonised by Sandino's of 19th-century land laws and the redistribution of farms to peasants

reversal

whose holdings had been expropriated

in the

expansion of the coffee bour-

geoisie.

even in the remote north — could was the Somozanot be allowed to last. The con trolled National Guard. Since the ceasefire, a confrontation between

The existence of a

state within a state

-

instrument for his removal

become inevitable and Sandino saw only new force represented, not only to his own

Sandino's forces and Somoza's had

too clearly the threat which the

security but to the future of Nicaragua. 'Here there are not

two

states

but three: one controlled by the president of the republic, one by the National Guard, and mine.'*^

By

the same token, the continued existence of government to arm civilians and restructure the Guardia on 'constitutional' lines, was a real threat to Somoza, who had been using his position as National Guard commander and his friendships in the US Embassy to pursue his own political ambitions.

Sandino, with his

calls for the

The Murder of Sandino The last year of Sandino's Ufe was also a crucial year in the rise of Somoza, with the impending collision between Sandinismo and ascendant Somocismo relegating the first of Sandino's three states' — the apparatus controlled by President Sacasa

—

to a marginal position. Sandino

had voluntarily accepted

the disarmament of an intact and undefeated army, but the prestige he

enjoyed and his open attacks on the National Guard presented a serious obstacle to Somoza, who now had clear designs not only on the future of the National Guard but on higher poHtical power. The restoration to office of the Liberal bourgeoisie in the figure of Sacasa, at the same time as the withdrawal of United States Marines and the removal from the political front line of old representatives of the Conservative oligarchy, made it difficult to sustain the impetus of the popular struggle and furthered an atmosphere of conciliation to which Sandino was not immune. All the time, knowing that the peace was still

fragile, the

a State

USA concentrated

Department

official

on building the strength of the Guard, and

expressed Washington's

new

realism about the

capacity of old political models to meet future problems: to run the risk of revolutionary disturbances

now and

let

'[It is]

preferable

the strong

man

emerge without further waste of time. '^^ Somoza carefully nurtured his relationship with US officials, first as Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, where he was used as an intermediary in discussions between the USA and President Moncada because of his fluent English and his reputation for diplomacy, and then as Jefe Director of the Guard. His appointment as the Guard's first Nicaraguan commander reflected the choice of Moncada and Washington's Minister in Managua, Matthew Hanna. But it went against the wishes of the new president, Sacasa, and this prepared the way for a power conflict in the short term between a

23

Somocismo and Sandinismo notoriously

weak

president and an increasingly strong military

for control of Nicaragua.

Somoza understood and exploited

commander

Sacasa's weak-

ness, giving the appearance of loyalty to the Constitution while strengthening

the Guard and consoUdating his personal control over it. The conventional image of a one -dimensional tyrant is as misleading a description of the founder of the dynasty as it was of his son. In fact, Somoza was a politician of great and cynical intelligence; even Sandino proved vulnerable to his apparent honesty, travelling three times to Managua for negotiations while the National Guard committed one provocation after another against the Sandinistas throughout 1933. His fourth visit, in February 1934, brought him to a capital where effective control had passed from the presidency to Somoza. The public embraces with which Sandino and Somoza had sealed their talks the previous year were a thing of the past. Sandino had rejected Somoza's ultimatum for the last of the EDSN to lay down their arms, and he continued to attack the Guard as an unconstitutional force. On the 21st, Somoza held a series of meetings with the recently appointed US minister, Arthur Bliss Lane, and the same night, as Sandino and a group of his generals were leaving a farewell dinner in the Presidential Palace, they were ambushed by a Guard patrol and shot dead. It was not sufficient to decapitate the movement: its roots had to be torn out too. On the following day, heavy National Guard forces attacked Sandino 's base camp at Wiwili, killing 300 of his followers. A campaign of terror, the 'Pacification of Las Segovias', began. The Guardia burned crops and farms, smashed Sandinista cooperatives and restored the conditions for the expansion of the latifundio system. Over the next three years, the remnants of guerrilla resistance were wiped out cuhninating in the death of the Sandinista general Pedro Altamirano. Moncada had appreciated the need to destroy the military strength oi Sandinismo and its forms of social organisation, alarmed as he had been by Sandino's talk of 'the need for the workers to fight the rich, and other things which constitute the seeds of communism'. Destruction of the revolutionary movement left the way open for a certain working unity between different sectors of the country's dominant classes, headed now by the agrarian bourgeoisie. The people's forces lost the initiative, and it took them 25 years of repression to regain it. The name of Sandino was banned in Nicaragua. The Partido de los Trabajadores Nicaraguenses (PTN) and other short-lived groups like the Partido Laborista and the Partido Republicano tried unsuccessfully to fill the vacuum, while attempts at autonomous working-class and peasant organisation were broken up. The working class remained weak and dissident ,

bourgeois groups failed to seek links with the masses. Nicaragua entered a

long period of military, cultural and ideological repression.

His Legacy

What caused the 24

annihilation of a disciplined military force 6,000 strong with

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance widespread popular support? The implication of some historians is that Sandino was naive in accepting a ceasefire and the good faith of Somoza and Sacasa.^^ In reality, conditions in 1933 did not allow Sandino many options for transforming his anti-imperialist struggle into a prolonged popular war.

Solid international support did not materialise. Internationally, anti-

was weak, and although it is customary to quote Kuomintang, the resonant declarations of support from the Vlth World Congress of the Comintern, the First AntiImperialist Congress of 1928, the All-American Anti-Imperialist League and a wide range of left-wing groups, they were of no more practical use than Cecil B. DeMille's abandoned filmscript: 'not enough', in Ramirez's phrase, 'to buy a single cartridge'. ^^ The support of sympathetic governments was also ambivalent - as in the case of Mexico where Sandino spent six long months in 1929 waiting for help from President Portes Gil, who ultimately decided that continuing good relations with the USA were more important. By 1933, fascism was rampant in Europe and brutal dictatorships (Ubico in imperialist consciousness

the Sandino Battalion of the

Guatemala, Carrilla in Honduras, Martinez in El Salvador) were the order of the day in Central America. Farabundo Marti and 30,000 peasants were dead in El Salvador.

Internally, the Ejercito Defensor de la Soberania Nacional was exhausted and almost out of ammunition. Its peasant supporters lacked the clear understanding of Sandino himself and too easily associated the physical withdrawal of the Marines with the total victory of their cause. Petty -bourgeois support for Sandinismo evaporated, and a military plan to withdraw and regroup in Honduras was blocked by war in that country. Negotiated settlement genuinely seemed Sandino's best hope for further manoeuvre. He knew that negotiation with the likes of Sacasa and Somoza was a risk, but it was a risk which had to be taken. ^^ Sandino's thought and his example of anti-imperialism, class consciousness and military strategy continue to underpin the Nicaraguan Revolution. The 1960s and 1970s struggle of the FSLN against Somoza was heir to Sandino's own perception that the Somocista state and the National Guard were merely an instrument of continuing United States domination ('being there without being there', in Humberto Ortega's phrase^®). It continued to recognise the urban proletariat and the peasantry as the only dependable revolutionary forces, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate progressive sectors of the bourgeoisie. And in almost twenty years of armed struggle, the FSLN inherited Sandino's conviction that the military offensive of these forces was the essential form of the political struggle. 'Sandinismo was a force which remained alive,' noted Ortega, 'because it was the product of the specific conditions of our country. It was not a phenomenon which was imposed theoretically or pulled out of books. Through his struggle and his action, Sandino created the theory and it is that which we have taken up.'^^ As is natural in any revolution, there are many opportunists and small bourgeois groups in Nicaragua who - lacking a popular base - now seek to legitimise themselves and outflank the FSLN by appropriating Sandino's ,

25

y

. .

Somocismo and Sandinismo ideas

and

his resonant phrases.

The red and black

flags

of the

FSLN

fly

over

comfortable Managua suburbs as well as over peasant huts and working-class barrios. Bourgeois politicians sign their declarations with ^dindino' s Patria Libertad (Fatherland and Freedom). Sandino's nationalism provided a broad

enough framework for the multi-class national unity of the Nicaraguan Revolution. The bourgeoisie, stifled in their own aspirations for national development,

may

find this sufficient, but they overlook Sandino's class

consciousness. Since

its

foundation in 1961 and especially in the ,

final critical

not the bourgeoisie which has defined the course of the revolution through Sandino's defence of the class interests of the masses. Sandino himself put it very simply: 'Only the workers and peasants will go on until the end; only their organised force phase of the insurrection,

it

has been the

FSLN -

will achieve victory .'^^

Notes

7.

Jaime Wheelock Komdin^Raices Indigenas de la Lucha Anticolonialista en Nicaragua (Mexico City, Siglo XXI, 1974), pp. 8-12. *El Pequeno Ejercito Loco — 'the crazy little army': name given to the Sandinista forces by the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. Barricada (newspaper of the FSLN), 3 May 1980. HumbQTto Ortega, 50 Anos de Lucha Sandinista, pp. 55-65. Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, No. 32 (August 1979), p. 19. Frente .Estudiantil Revolucionario {¥EK)Jdeario Patriotico de Sandino (Mimeo,n.p.). NACLA,Ljfz>2 America and Empire Report, Vol. X, No. 2, February

8.

1976, p. 7. RamiTtz, El Pensamiento Vivo de Sandino,

9.

NACLA,/oc.

1

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

10. 1 1

'

p. x\i.

cit.

Augusto Cesar Sandino: Ideario Politico (mimeo, n.p.). Ramon de Belausteguigoitia: Conversaciones con Sandino, El Pensamiento Vivo de Sandino, p. 290.

in

Ramirez,

12. Sandino: Ideario Politico. 13. See the last section of this Chapter, 'His Legacy', for an analysis of the

reasons for Sandino's acceptance of a ceasefire. 14. Ramirez, op.

cit. p. Ixviii. 15. Sandino, interview with Lfl Pre«jfl,

February 1934. Belden Bell {td.), Nicaragua: An Ally Under Siege (Washington D.C., Council on American Affairs, 1978). 17. This fear was shared even by some of Sandino's own supporters. See his letter to his friend Gustavo Aleman Bolanos from Bocay, 16 March I933;in El Pensamiento Vivo de Sandino, p. 301. 18. Ramirez, op. c/r. p. Ixviii. 19. Humberto Ortega, speech at the Gruta Javier, 13 December 1979; in La Revolucion a Traves de Nuestra Direccion Nacional (Managua, Secretaria Nacional de Propaganda y Educacion Politica del FSLN

16.

(SENAPEP), 1980). 26

Sandino and the Tradition of Resistance 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid.

22. Sandino: Ideario Politico.

27

3.

The Somozas

— Building

the Family State

Somoza's Rise to Power Divisions within the Conservative Party over left

way open

the

its tactics in

the 1932 elections

for the Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa to assume power. This

weak presidency, hardly a formidable obstacle to he set about building his personal influence over Congress and the ruling Liberal Party Whatever resistance he encountered was mobilised by Sacasa's wife, but her efforts were consistently blocked by the US Minister initiated an inherently

Somoza

as

.

Lane, who shared Moncada's enthusiasm for the young Somoza.^ though, that American support could not yet be taken for granted, and with his sights fixed on the 1936 elections he proved adept at feigning democratic procedures if US favour appeared to be wavering. Throughout Somoza 's rule the Nicaraguan Constitution was a hollow sham, to be alternately flouted, rewritten or given lip service, as circumstances demanded. In the run-up to the 1936 election, Somoza first considered divorcing his wife (Sacasa's niece) to comply with a constitutional clause prohibiting the succession within six months of any relative of the incumbent president. Next, to allay criticisms of irregularities in his campaign he suddenly announced his intention to withdraw his candidacy, guarantee the neutrality of the National Guard, and support the legally elected candidate. Finally he briefly resigned his command of the Guard once he had succeeded in forcing Sacasa out of office. This he did by launching a

Arthur

Bliss

Somoza

realised,

,

military drive against regional National

Guard barracks, dismissing all officers was controlled by pro-Somoza

loyal to the president until the entire country officers.

Somoza had demonstrated

in the election

year his ability to blend brute

military force with a degree of populism. With

some followers

seeing

him

as

Nicaraguan answer to Hitler or Mussolini, he formed a 100-strong shock force of young Fascists, the Camisas Azules (Blueshirts), who were armed by the Guardia and allowed to mobilise in the streets without interference. They were used by Somoza to burn down an opposition newspaper and intimidate political enemies. At the same time, populism served the purpose of further a

undermining the authority of a frightened Sacasa as the president nervously down on all signs of dissent. When a strike of drivers turned

cracked

28

The Somozas - Building the Family State militantly anti-government, Sacasa threatened to call in the National

Guard Somoza, in a rousing speech to the strikers, promised that the Guard would take charge of petrol distribution to safeguard the drivers' interests. The prompt end to the strike was accompanied by 'spontaneous' pro-Somoza demonstrations orchestrated by

(over which he had no control), while

the Guard.

Sacasa resigned in June and the interim president obligingly put the election back until

- chosen by Somoza -

December, precisely the

six -month which Somoza needed to avoid constitutional obstacles. In December he duly came to power, backed not only by the Liberals - whom he had renamed the Partido Liberal Nacionalista (PLN) - but also by the still confused Conservatives, who had failed to come up with a more acceptable candidate. The voting, carefully supervised by the National Guard, gave 'Tacho' what he considered an adequate majority: 107,201 votes against 169 cast for his opponent Leonardo Arguello. His intention of transforming the presidency into a dynasty became apparent in a major redrafting of the Constitution three years later. A Constituent Assembly, extension of the presidential term from four years to six, and clauses empowering the president to decree laws relating to the National Guard without consulting Congress, ensured Somoza's absolute power over the state and the military. Control over the electoral and legislative machinery gave the basis for a permanent dictatorship. Simultaneously, the opposition had to be suppressed. To achieve this, Somoza moved to exploit the weakness of the bourgeoisie, consoHdate his own dominant position within the class, neutralise the Left (a task made easier by the extermination of Sandinismo) and maintain internal stability - of paramount importance to the USA - through the exercise of force. The new dictatorial model faced only one period of real difficulty: the years from 1944 to 1948. Threats in that period came at Somoza from every angle^ - from the Conservatives, Liberal dissidents, a working-class resurgence, and even US ambivalence. He faced attacks on his plans for reelection, a Liberal Party convention which produced a major split, an opposition inspired by the fall of the dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador, an attempted general strike of the kind which had led to the downfall of Ubico and Martinez, student demonstrations, and a new generation of

interval

,

intellectual critics.

Dismembering the Opposition The

so-called 'Generation of '44'

Composed

is

a

key phenomenon

in

Nicaraguan history.

principally of middle -class intellectuals, with considerable strength

provided an important link in the continuing legitiweapon of some sectors of the bourgeoisie. Its main expression was the formation of the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI), a group of Liberal dissidents who broke with Somoza in March 1944 in the university, it also

macy of armed

action as a

29

Somocismo and Sandinismo of its members had been placed under house arrest. The PLI which remains alive today, a committed member of the revolutionary bloc of parties headed by the FSLN. The roots of the PLI's dispute lay in their opposition at the 1 944 convention to Somoza's plans for a further term of office and further interference with the Constitution. In the same year one of their leaders, General Carlos Pasos, led an armed movement - easily defeated - against the dictatorship, while younger Liberal dissidents formed a youth movement called the Frente Juvenil Democratico (FJD: Democratic Youth Front). The FJD acted as a breeding ground for intellectuals who later formed the guerrilla of El Chaparral, an immediate precursor of the FSLN in the late 1950s. One of its members was Rigoberto Lopez after several is

a party

Perez, the

young poet who

assassinated

Somoza Garcia

in

1956.

Conservative dissidents too played their part in the events of 1944.

Two

of them were prominent as leaders of street demonstrations in Leon and Managua, which were brutally put down by the National Guard. They were Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the editor oiLa Prensa subsequently murdered by the dictatorship in February 1978, and Rafael Cordova Rivas, a lawyer appointed to the Junta of National Reconstruction in 1980 after the Revolution.

A

certain resurgence of the working-class

movement coincided with

these

and in July 1944 the Moscowline Partido SociaUsta Nicaraguense (PSN) was founded. However, 'the PSN was born at a meeting whose aim was to declare its support for the Somoza Government'."^ Far from offering a militant threat to the regime, the new party shared the conciliatory line adopted'by communist parties throughout Latin America at the end of the Second World War. In the language of Yalta, Latin America was definitely earmarked as the United States' sphere of influence. In Cuba, Juan Marinello, chairman of the CP, had actually entered the Batista cabinet in 1943. The PSN similarly was at pains not to challenge the established order. But while other communists in the region were backtracking from an already established base in the labour movement of their respective countries, the PSN began its activities at the lowest point of the Latin American CPs, under the influence of the US Communist Party leader Earl Browder. Its founding meeting came only two months after the dissolution of the CPUSA at its May 1944 convention."* signs of bourgeois opposition to the regime,

Despite party.

its

conciHatory

A honeymoon

line,

Somoza moved

swiftly to abort the

new

year of legality and the refusal to build a clandestine

an easy prey to Somoza's attack. As Somoza stifled a on the Guatemalan or Salvadorean model by threatening to confiscate the property of anyone taking part, he also gave thought to ways of heading off radical influence among the working class. Again

network

left

the

planned general

PSN

strike

populism provided the answer, and Somoza persuaded Congress to pass a Labour Code which acceded to many of the workers' principal demands. From here it was an easy step to installing pro-government trade unions. The provisions of the Labour Code were set aside, and any miHtant organisation of the working class was destroyed after 1945. Although intermittent strikes

30

The Somozas - Building the Family State continued through the 1940s and 1950s, a rudderless working class was unable to resist the repression with which they were invariably met.

Somoza adroitly enemy of the United States. After

In dealing with resistance,

identified his opposition with

with Fascism 1930s, he declared war on the Axis powers in December 1941 allowing the USA to install naval and airforce bases inside Nicaragua, and receiving in the current

in the

return large

his flirtation

,

amounts of military equipment which would never be used enemy. The War was used as an excuse to declare a state

against an external

of siege and suspend constitutional guarantees. After 1945, he abruptly all opposition as 'agents of international Communism' and continued to count on American support in his moves to eradicate it. Post-war relations with the USA were not entirely smooth, however, and the Americans added their voice to internal complaints when Somoza again declared his intention to seek re-election to the presidency in 1947. In response, Somoza found a man he thought would be a puppet; his defeated opponent of 1936, labelled

Leonardo Arguello, now old and presumably open to manipulation. Somoza perfectly well that the weakened Conservatives (this time supporting a joint candidate with the Independent Liberal PLI), and his own control over the National Guard and the electoral process, would guarantee victory to his chosen candidate, whether or not this bore any relation to the votes actually cast. Arguello was of course declared the winner, but once in power proved disturbingly independent and progressive. Within days of his election, a Panamanian newspaper published details of Arguello's remarkable talks with the Union Nicaraguense de Liberacion, a new ad hoc opposition group: 'Dr Leonardo Arguello guarantees the complete freedom of Nicaraguan workers to organise in trade unions and engage in political activities ... he will give special attention to the proposals made by the Partido Socialista Nicaraguense in its campaign to improve the lot of the working class. He promises to discard the dictatorship as a form of government, and condemns the antiworking-class campaign mounted by the Conservative newspaper La Prensa.'^ Somoza allowed Arguello only 25 days of this before launching a coup, even though it meant antagonising the United States, who briefly broke off diplomatic relations.^ This single experience of letting go of the reins of power was enough for Somoza, and after taking the presidency again he strengthened his rule still further by another rewrite of the Constitution, this time banning the PSN and adding to the powers of the Jefe Director of

knew

the National Guard.

remained for him to deal with the Conservatives, who were angered by Somoza with the state and found it opportune to remind the dictator that he was after all exercising power on behalf of the bourgeoisie as a whole. In the face of so much adverse pressure, Tacho' found it necessary to restore some semblance of legitimacy to his regime. For the Conservatives of the late 1940s it was unrealistic to thinjc in terms of regaining control of the state apparatus. What concerned them more now was their economic future. Somoza 's confiscation of rich coffee and cattle farms from German emigres had laid the foundation for a rapid accumulation It

the growing identification of

31

Somocismo and Shrtdinismo of personal wealth by means of corruption and the abuse of state power, with which other members of the bourgeoisie could not compete. These early methods of personal enrichment had brought him a fortune of several million dollars by the end of the Second World War, which increased as he made

open use of state funds, including levies on cattle exports, mining and textile operations and the 5% levy on all state employees' salaries as a contribution to the PLN. More landowners were 'persuaded' to transfer their properties to Somoza for minimal prices in exchange for political patronage - little more than a crude protection racket — and the location of Somoza's new landholdings provided the rationale for national development in the form of new roads and port facilities. An abortive military uprising led by the old caudillo and Conservative general Emiliano Chamorro proved the last serious Conservative challenge to Somocismo. Thereafter the party decided to throw in its lot with the Liberal dictatorship in exchange for certain economic safeguards, an arrangement in which the Conservatives permanently forfeited their popular support. The two parties signed pacts in 1948 and 1950, the second offering the Conservatives one-third of the seats in Congress and formal guarantees of free commercial activity and respect for their economic interests. For Somoza, the two-party state with its built-in Liberal majority meant that dictatorial control could be maintained under a veneer of political representativity and without resorting to excessive state violence. Despite repeated electoral fraud and constitutional violations, the model lasted for more than two decades owing to a degree of bourgeois consensus and the inability of a fractured popular

movement

The Death of Somoza Around

the absolute

to resist.

I

power of Somocismo and the

opposition there grew a

myth

that the dictatorship

passivity of the formal

was

indestructible.

Any

resumption of the revolutionary struggle depended therefore on shattering that myth. In a biography of Somoza Garcia's assassin, the poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez, the Sandinista leader Jose Benito Escobar reflected on the importance of the assassination, which took place as Somoza arrived in Leon on 21 September 1956 to accept the Liberal Party nomination for a further presidential term:

First: an incentive which would serve as an example to the masses. was necessary to destroy the myth of the tyrant with a successful action which could never be employed by the bourgeoisie as a demagogic weapon. Second: it put an end to the traditional methods of opposition which the bourgeoisie had imposed on our people; the bourgeoisie having been the class which had until the time of this action headed the fight against the dictatorship in its own way. It

32

The Somozas - Building the Family State Third:

it

reaffirmed to the people that the forms of struggle to be

employed to

attain liberation should be those

which correspond to the

needs of the people, who should respond to the violence of exploitation with the violence of the popular masses.^

The death of Somoza Garcia, coinciding with

a

renewed economic

crisis

be discussed in Chapter 5, did not of course bring the dynasty to an end, and Lopez Perez himself saw that his action was only 'the beginning of the end.'^ He appreciated that major historical changes were

which

will

not the work of individuals, but recognised too the weakness and disorientation of the Nicaraguan masses and their need to shift their struggle on to a

new

plane in which the objective economic

crisis

battering the peasants and

workers could be matched by a subjective realisation of their capacity for organisation and resistance.

For the week that Somoza lay in a coma in a Panama Canal Zone hospital, flown there on the instructions of US Ambassador Thomas Whelan, the myth lingered on, fostered by falsely optimistic medical reports in the governmentcontrolled media, while the regime made arrangements for a smooth handover of power to the dictator's two sons, Luis and Anastasio Jr. When the team of doctors sent from the United States by President Eisenhower finally pronounced the 'good neighbour' dead, Luis was already installed in the presidency and Tachito' ('little Tacho') was running the National Guard. The special relationship between Washington and the Somozas (depicted in that way for domestic consumption even during the strained days which had followed Somoza's overthrow of President Arguello in 1947) was of incalculable value to the dynasty in assuring domestic control at the

of

moment

crisis.

Whatever the personal qualms of his predecessors about the character of was to prove a solid friend to the second generation of the dictatorship. Since the 1930s Nicaragua had been considered by Washington as a useful thermometer forjudging its Latin American policy, and the 'Good Neighbour Policy' announced by the incoming Franklin Roosevelt had had a good deal to do with the Marines' debacle in 1933. Nicaragua was a vital pillar of US regional control, and the close relationship brought mutual benefit - with Somoza's reliable friendship being rewarded by American support in whatever form circumstances demanded, political, economic, military and ideological. Any doubts which Somoza Garcia might have had about his own methods had been allayed as early as 1936 when Washington indicated the flexibility of its Good Neighbour Policy, particularly where Central America was concerned, by recognising the military dictatorship of Martinez in El Salvador. Previous refusal to grant recognition to de facto regimes was abandoned if these regimes suited US strategic the Somozas, Eisenhower

A government's effective control of the country now became the only criterion for diplomatic approval. In 1939, Somoza had cemented the

interests.

relationship with President Roosevelt with a personal visit to Washington, where he was received with full state honours. The two presidents subse-

33

Somocismo and Sandinismo quently exchanged letters in which Roosevelt agreed,

among other things, new Military

to

provide an American director for the National Guard's

Academy, and in 1940 Somoza honoured his ally's re-election by renaming Managua's principal thoroughfare the Avenida Roosevelt. A miUion dollars' worth of military assistance to Nicaragua followed in 1941 and continuing aid allowed Somoza to build what was by local standards a powerful airforce. When Luis and Anastasio II inherited the state after the assassination of their father in 1956, they received with it a private army without parallel in Latin America. ,

The Somoza Empire At the time of Somoza Garcia's death, his two sons also inherited a vast economic empire. Most descriptions of Somocista wealth begin with the now legendary reference to a broken-down coffee plantation near San Marcos in Carazo, the family's only property before Somoza took control of the National Guard in 1933. From then on, the Somozas' exercise of state power and their umbilical ties to United States imperialism, control of the military and Liberal Party machine, friendships with successive US ambassadors, and the exploitation of foreign aid and technical assistance, provided the framework for a spectacular accumulation of personal wealth. Somoza Garcia had already shown his penchant for irregular methods while still an accountancy student in the USA, counterfeiting dollar bills and gold coins. The method passed from father to son, with Anastasio Somoza Debayle perfecting the clan's technique. When he was overthrown in 1979 by the FSLN, estimates of the family fortune were impeded by complex financial legislation, inadequate records and extensive foreign holdings under other names. Interviewed on his arrival for exile in Miami, Somoza told reporters that he was worth only $100 million, but US government sources placed the figure at $900 million.^ The acquisition of the Somoza fortune, intimately associated with the overall pattern of capital accumulation by the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, passed through a number of clearly defined stages. First, as we have seen, came the appropriation of German-owned properties in Matagalpa, Jinotega and Managua, under the pretext of anti-Nazism and taking advantage of the wartime state of seige and suspension of constitutional guarantees. This made Somoza Garcia the country's largest private landowner by 1944, with 51 cattle ranches, 46 coffee fincas and 8 sugar plantations, which made him the country's leading producer of sugar and associated products. ^^ At the same time, he profiteered from the war economy, and came out of the Second World War with an estimated fortune of $60 million. 'Dirty business' went hand in hand with control of war exports, and Somoza Garcia cornered gambling rackets, brothels and illegal alcohol production, as well as a monopoly over contraband (electrical goods, jewellery, machine tools). His monopoly control extended, too, over the granting of import and export

34

^

The Somozas - Building the Family State licences, the centralised use

of state agencies and personal influence over

transport and communications planning.

After the Second World War, Somoza moved on to meat exports and mining concessions in the late 1940s. The latter brought him direct ownership of some mines. The destruction of Sandino's army had already been a profitable business for Somoza. He had right at the start taken control of the San Albino mine and extensive farmlands in the north which had belonged to Sandinista combatants and sympathisers. From those mines - the great majority - which remained in US hands, he extracted ?400,000 a year in

exchange for tax exemption, and 2!4% of the value of gold production as 'presidential concession'. Later, the

Somoza

a

family expanded into the

cement works, textile plants like 'El Only Somoza 's plant 'La Salud' could process milk, and the sale of non-processed milk was forbidden. The acquisition of state transport facilities followed: the merchant shipping line MAMENIC, the state airline LANICA, and the port installations at Puerto Somoza on the Pacific. After Somoza Garcia's death, industry expanded and American finance boosted the growth of the Central American Common Market (Mercado incipient industrial sector, through

Porvenir' and a

monopoly of milk

pasteurising.

Comun Centroamericana: MCCA) in the early 1960s. Now the family began to use USAID funds to extend their empire into new regional integration and meat processing plants, all industries which enjoyed preferential fiscal conditions. The empire continued to diversify, and after the 1972 earthquake took on a corporate structure analogous to that of the other big bourgeois finance groups. Somoza Debayle's forays into property construction, finance and insurance began to overstep the mark which the rest of the bourgeoisie was willing to tolerate. With the Nixon presidency in Washington, Somoza renewed his interest in industries like paper mills, fisheries

,

and tourism, often in partnership with Cuban and speculators from Florida and California.^ Each stage in this process of accumulation was reinforced by the Somozas' handling of fiscal legislation. The techniques ranged from straightforward tax evasion, ^^ through payoffs from US companies in exchange for the free operation of foreign capital, to the selective application of tax laws and the use of the Central American Common Market for personal gain. In the final years of Somocismo, Managua abounded with rumours and allegations of drugs, casinos, prostitution

exiles

more outrageous business practices. One such story is a small but eloquent

ever

illustration

tionship between state and

economic power. Like

bours, Nicaragua looked to

its

when

its

of the Somocista

rela-

Central American neigh-

chain of active volcanoes as an alternative

One such volcano, dominating the skyline of Lake Managua, is the perfect cone of Momotombo. Geothermal energy excited Somoza Debayle, and in 1975 he set up the energy source

oil prices

rocketed in the 1970s.

company Energeticos SA and the US-based California Energy with American business partners. The two companies were awarded government contracts to begin exploratory drilling, and the lower slopes of Momotombo drilling

35

Somocismo and Sandinismo (where Somoza owned extensive properties) were chosen as the site.. Energeticos SA proceeded to sink shafts with complete abandon in the un-

had specified that charges would be paid according to the area drilled, not the resources located. The next step was for Somoza to persuade Congress to pass a law granting compensation to any landowner whose property was damaged by geothermal development. The Hkeliest spots, for the contract

assumption was that geysers would harm farmland, but Momotombo's lower slopes are barren rock desert. To enhance his profits, Somoza insisted that compensation rates be pegged to the rise in oil prices — geothermal energy was after all a petroleum substitute. Finally the Japanese transnational Kawasaki was awarded the rights to exploit the new energy source. Somoza demanded his customary cut from foreign business, estimated by sources working on the project at more than $\ miUion.*^ The congruence of the state arid Somoza's own financial interests allowed the dictatorship to guard against future setbacks in a way which has made

economic life difficult initially for Nicaragua's revolutionary state sector. Large chunks of the industries and landholdings confiscated in 1979 had been mortgaged to the Banco Nacional without collateral, their revenues already salted away in untouchable bank accounts in the Netherlands Antilles, Switzerland, or the Virgin Islands.^"* Nonetheless, the wealth which the state has been able to recover is considerable. The companies administered by the Oficina de Supervigilancia y Control de las Empresas del General Anastasio Somoza Debayle embraced almost every economic sector: rice and meat processing plants, tobacco factories, dairies and sugar mills; seven fisheries companies; cooking oil, plastics, matches, packaging, footwear; chemical, icemaking and computing factories, recording companies, jewellers, coffee retailers and motor distributors; asbestos, cement, concrete, metalwork, furniture and building materials; extensive service industries including the state airline

and merchant shipping line, port facilities and cargo handlers, and television stations; insurance companies,

hotel chains, newspapers, radio

banks and finance houses.*^

Dependent Capitalism In Nicaragua, as throughout Latin America, cultural imperialism visible legacy

of

US economic

control.

is

the

The American economist Otto

most J.

Scott, writing to encourage investors in Somoza's Nicaragua, gave an accurate enough image of pre -revolution Managua: '[An American] would hear many will old, familiar US songs on the radio in English. A trip to Managua disclose the ubiquitous McDonald's, billboards extolling the new Visa bank cards and the Diner's Club as well as BankAmericards and American movies. On the highways he will see compacts from the world's leading manufacturing centres: the United States, Japan and Germany. He can fill his tank at a Texaco, Chevron or Esso station for ?1 a gallon.''^ The role assigned to Nicaragua by US capital, as a supplier of raw materials .

36

.

.

The Somozas - Building the Family State market for manufactured goods, scarred the economy with every on its exports of cotton, coffee, each at the mercy of world market prices. Its industry sugar, meat, seafood is grossly underdeveloped, unable to meet internal demand. Although the and

a

feature of dependency. Nicaragua relies

all Somoza-owned property has given the Sandinista Revolution immediate state control of large areas of prime agricultural land and scores of factories, each sector of the bourgeoisie had its role in the framework of dependency and retains muscle through its links with Western

expropriation of

capitalism in key areas like cotton production, ^^ despite

its

traditionally

weak political organisation and leadership. The Nicaraguan bourgeoisie only modernised with the expansion of cotton in the 1950s. This introduced a new model of capitalism which supplanted the coffee latifundismo of the first half of the century. The expansion of cotton production had a

triple significance:

deepening dependency, sealing

the predominantly agricultural character of the bourgeoisie, and dramatically

widening the gulf between the dominant classes and the enlarged rural proletariat.^^ In the 1950s, the new demands of cotton production wrenched 180,000 peasants from traditional small farming into seasonal plantation labour. With no semblance of planning, the cotton crop grew 120-fold from

1949 to 1955, devouring 400,000 acres of the Pacific Coast previously devoted to cereal production. As before, the rationale was provided by the current requirements of the North American market, this time increased

Korean War. US economic dependency by primarily supplying US needs was nothing new the pattern had been set during the Second World War. But what did change was the character of local bourgeois ownership. In the 1940s US strategy had further deformed the Nicaraguan economy by directly stimulating capital accumulation by Somoza. Old strategic interests had resurfaced with the need to protect the Panama Canal in wartime, bolstering Somoza at a time when he was consolidating his internal control and refining the techniques of personal enrichment. For the American war economy, Nicaragua became a key supplier of raw materials like rubber, minerals and timber (whose sale largely produced revenues for North American companies) and agricultural products. The US Government's development plan offered Nicaragua credits exclusively for agricultural exports, not for generating local industry. ^^ The US share of Nicaraguan exports escalated. In 1938, 25% of Nicaraguan exports went to Europe and 67% to the USA: by 1944 the USA's share had risen to 91% and Europe's had fallen to only 1%.^° Simultaneously, Nicaragua was prepared for its future role as a market for manufactured goods during the post-war recovery of the American economy. With the cotton boom of the 1950s and the stagnation of the coffee bourgeoisie, three centres of bourgeois economic power crystalUsed, representing different though overlapping interest groups, each defined in its own way by dependency. They were the Somoza clan itself, the Banco Nicaraguense (BANIC), and the Banco de America (BANAMERICA). Each of the new

demand and higher

prices for cotton because of the

insistence that Nicaragua should be locked into :

37

Somocismo and Sandinismo banking groups had direct ties with US capital, BANIC with the Chase Manhattan Bank and BANAMERICA with the Wells Fargo Bank (an 18.8% stockholder) and the First National City Bank. The creation of the new finance groups also had roots in the power-sharing agreements of the late 1940s. For the Conservatives, BANAMERICA was the fomialisation of the economic guarantees embodied in the 1948 and 1950 pacts, although these guarantees were rarely respected in practice if they conflicted with the interests of the Somozas. For Somoza, the pacts had brought clear economic as well as political advantage The ensuing rationalisation of the state administration simplified management of the family economic empire. Other bourgeois sectors were caught both ways: despite the consolidation of BANIC and BANAMERICA, they could not recover the ground lost over the previous fifteen years, in which Somoza had taken full advantage of the .

absence of private finance institutions.

BANIC, founded at the height of the cotton boom in 1953, became the more important of the two non-Somoza finance groups, investing its cotton profits in industrialisation and the regional integration programmes dictated by US policy during the 1960s. During that 'Development Decade', it forged a close working relationship with US AID and other agencies, involving itself in social reform programmes and giving space to the younger and more dynamic bourgeois groups typified by the development institute INDE (Instituto Nicaraguense de Desarrollo), formed in 1963. At the same time, BANIC built links with US transnational such as the Consolidated Food Corporation, Booth Fisheries, Pepsi-Cola, United Fruit, General Mills and ABC Television (the last of these owned jointly in Nicaragua by BANIC and Somoza).

BANAMERICA

meanwhile originated

in the

modern expression of traditional Conservative

same period (1952) as a major control-

interests. Its

elements were the families of the old Conservative oligarchies - the Pellas and the Chamorro — and it continued to centre on antiquated sources

ling

of economic power like sugar and livestock. In contrast to the dynamic BANIC group, BAN AMERICA'S importance withered during the course of the 1960s as a result of BANIC 's ties to US AID and Somoza 's monopoly of the expanded state bureaucracy, until Conservatism again resorted to a pact at the end of the decade to secure its declining economic status. Although BAN AMERICA'S ties to American capital were less overt, its survival also rested on the sales of the group's agricultural products and its political

dependency on Somoza.

BANIC

is described as the Banco Liberal and Banco Comervador. In practice the distinction was not so rigid. Shared economic interests, poHtical convenience and the peculiarities of the Nicaraguan state made for considerable inter-penetration as well as competition, not only between the two groups but also in partnership with Somoza. Whatever the relative strengths of BANIC and BANAMERICA, the new wealth of the post-war boom was dominated by the Somoza family.^*

Conventionally,

BANAMERICA

38

as the

The Somozas - Building the Family State

Regional Integration and Industrialisation It

may seem paradoxical that an economy dominated by such faithful US interests was not marked by a higher level of direct American

servants of

investment. There were, however, complex historical reasons for this: the late arrival of Nicaragua's 'Liberal Reform' and its interruption by military intervention, the country's sparse population and limited internal market, the

absence of significant petrochemical or mineral reserves, the restricted role

US

(Standard Fruit had pulled out when its plantaby Sandino in 1931). A new opening for American investors came in 1 960 with the foundation of the Central American Common Market (MCCA).^^ Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala were its original signatories, with Costa Rica joining in 1962. Indeed a legal framework for favouring the regional expansion of US monopoly capital was fundamental to Washington's strategy in proposing the MCCA. Doors opened to foreign capital throughout the isthmus, but of

fruit multinationals

tions were attacked

remained the lowest among the market's five in Nicaraguan capitalism could not be measured in strict dollar-for-dollar terms. Even if the quantity remained small, American companies' share of all foreign investment grew until it represented 80% of the $170-million total. 'We don't have the exact figure,' said Roberto Incer, president of the Banco Central. 'We don't impose restrictions on foreign capital by keeping records of it.' Secrecy of operations was one of the many benefits enjoyed by US companies investing in Nicaragua. They were granted exemption from foreign exchange purchase restrictions, fiscal incentives, unlimited rights of transfer of capital and profits, free importation of machinery and export of finished products, and mutually beneficial credit arrangements through Somoza's development bank INFONAC.^^ American capital increased its foothold in various ways, establishing new enterprises and buying up traditional ones, squeezing out local firms, notably in the fishing and chemical industries, by persuading competitors to reduce their level of operations, and entering into joint investment ventures with Somoza and other Nicaraguan businessmen. Eventually 63 American transnationals and 70 subsidiaries were operating in Nicaragua: 76% of all foreign -controlled enterprises.^"* The most powerful were Exxon (an oil refinery), Hercules and Pennwalt (chemicals), United Brands (a plastics subsidiary), Nabisco and General Mills (food processing). Sears Roebuck and Co. (department stores), and US Steel, who operated the METASA plant jointly with Somoza. The MCCA was born of a crisis of capitahst development, it produced a short artificial boom, and it ended in renewed crisis. As a development strategy it was closely linked with the Alliance for Progress, seeking industriahsation rather than agrarian reform, a gradual process of import substitution for regional markets, and the relocation of foreign and domestic direct investment in Nicaragua

member

countries. But the

capital in industry as a

MCCA was

USA's stake

more

reliable base for capital

accumulation. The

designed to rationalise the local supply of agricultural and

39

Somocismo and Sandinismo and the transnationals who would supervise this process were attracted by the abundance of cheap labour. But the integration plan rapidly hit structural problems inherent in the local economies. All of them relied on vulnerable agricultural exports, and their domestic markets could not expand quickly enough to keep pace with the growth of new industry. Local firms had no option but to import machinery and parts from the USA for their assembly plants. Technological dependency and foreign debt escalated, especially at the expense of the weaker member countries, Honduras and Nicaragua. At the end of the decade local markets were saturated and investment declined sharply. These contradictions were heightened first by the Honduras-El Salvador conflict of 1969 and later by regional resentment at Somoza's protectionism - designed of course to protect his own industries.^^ In 1974 he closed Nicaragua's borders to textile imports from Guatemala and El Salvador on the grounds of market saturation. Both Nicaragua's principal textile factories, El Porvenir and Vestidos SA, were Somoza-owned. The Common Market was briefly profitable for BANIC and BANAMERICA, but the economic spurt it brought could not be sustained. For a time too, it papered over inter-bourgeois conflicts which might have been generated if agrarian reform rather than industrialisation had been the cornerstone of US strategy. Instead, 'Nicaragua's major bourgeois groups fluctuate freely across the range of commercial, industrial, financial and agroexporting activities, blurring the demarcation between these different forms of capitalism, which in other contexts might indicate class fractions within the bourgeoisie.'^^ But this only applied to the dominant groups. Integration speeded up the tendency towards monopoly capitalism at the expense of weaker bourgeois sectors. Of the 600 industrial plants employing five or more workers, 136 generated 72% of total production, and only 28 (principally in chemicals, plastics and foodstuffs) accounted for 35% of industrial output in 1971 A mere 5% of the country's industrial output came from 13,000 small enterprises whose owners derived no benefit from Somocismo and who turned overwhelmingly against the system. Although manufacturing accounted for one -fifth of GDP by the 1970s, its emphasis on predominantly export -oriented light industry and assembly plants did nothing to break down economic dependency. Technological dependency, as well as bringing acute balance of payments problems, also meant capitalintensive industries. The MCCA did nothing to provide work for the new legions of Nicaragua's urban unemployed. On paper, it looked good for Somoza. Manufacturing industry brought a growth rate of almost 10%, a figure exceeded in Latin America only by Brazil. But this growth rate, boosted briefly by high export prices during the Vietnam War, largely reflected the ability of Somoza's own industries to 'grow' with the stimulus of unsecured state credits. By the turn of the decade, the MCCA was in crisis, economic growth had declined, world prices for Nicaragua's agricultural products had fallen, and private investment had also declined. Somoza tried to compensate by increasing public spending, but he industrial products,

.

40

The Somozas - Building the Family State only succeeded in increasing

among

unemployment and depressing

real

income

the working classes.

However, a new group of investors emerged. Those who had flocked America in the '60s were the traditional multinationals. Those who came now were aggressive, unscrupulous speculators based in Miami, Las Vegas and Southern California, who had made quick fortunes in electronics, aerospace and defence contracts, real estate. Their patrons were Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew; the brightest stars in their constellation Frank Sinatra and Robert Vesco, Howard Hughes and Bebe Rebozo. Their location in the 'gateway to the south' gave them close ties with organised crime and easy access to Central America. The military bourgeoisie, headed by Somoza and President Arana of Guatemala, became their natural allies in the region; ambassadors like Turner Shelton were useful local protectors; Managua and Guatemala City were transformed into the hub of their operations. Their Cuban friends in Miami brought their experience of 'dirty business' which had made Batista's Havana the corrupt playground of the American rich. With the collapse of the Central American Common Market's planned growth, Sunbelt dollars went into quick-profit service industries: hotels, casinos and tourism. The only prerequisite for their investments was the stability which to Central

military dictatorships could provide.

Reformism and the

New

Militarism

The sixteen years from Somoza Garcia 's death to the Managua earthquake of 1972 brought three phases in the gradual disintegration of the dictatorship. Ten years of relative reformism under Luis Somoza 's 1957-63 presidency and the 1963-67 civilian facade of the Liberal lawyer Rene Schick were followed by the first two presidential terms of Anastasio Somoza Debayle's full-blown militarism (1967 and 1971). These varying models of Liberal domination reflected on one hand the dictatorship's response to the changing demands of US policy and internal patterns of economic growth, and on the other a fundamental conflict of strategies between the two Somoza brothers. Luis believed that control of the Liberal Party offered the key to power in a state whose civilian bureaucracy would grow at the expense of its military apparatus, while his more realistic brother saw that the power of the dynasty would always ultimately reside in control of the National Guard. From the first, Tacho' Somoza (he had now dropped the diminutive Tachito') had been groomed for a military career, becoming a major on graduation from West Point, taking command of the 1st Battalion of the Guardia and becoming the first Nicaraguan director of the Military Academy. Luis in contrast, had followed a civilian career, in charge of negotiations for US military assistance at the end of World War Two, then a Congressman, and finally President of Congress. With the death of their father, Luis was designated presidential candidate for the 1957 elections. Anastasio meanwhile showed his concept of state power by unleashing the National Guard

41

Somocismo and Sandinismo on opponents and arresting hundreds of dissidents including Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. His excesses led the Conservatives to boycott the elections. Throughout the early years of the Luis Somoza presidency dissident Conservatives continued to attack the regime, resorting to arms on numerous occasions including the invasion of Olama y los MoUejones in 1 959 and the seizure of the Diriamba and Jinotepe barracks in 1960. For a spell, the Guardia 's worst excesses were held in check by Luis, and Tacho was out,

raged at the lenient treatment given to captured opponents.

The

of the presidency of Luis brought economic modernisaand even a degree of press freedom, despite long periods of martial law. A climate of limited democracy was in tune now with Washington's aims in Nicaragua, and it was US policy after the Cuban Revolution which brought to a head the conflicting strategies of the two brothers. As the new Castro Government made its first moves to expropriate US property on the island, first the Eisenhower and then the Kennedy administration rushed to stifle the first hint of a workers' state in the Caribbean. Kennedy inherited, and approved, a plan for direct military attack against Cuba at Playa Giron in 1961 (the Bay of Pigs invasion) and received enthusiastic support from the Somozas. But when the invasion turned to fiasco, Washington produced a strategy of latter half

tion, a reduction of the military budget, increased foreign investment

permanent counter-revolution, intervention

as^a system. Nicaragua's history

an ideal test case for the subtler new US policy of repression through a blend of social reform and counter-insurgency. In a matter of months in 1961 and 1962, 'developmental' agencies sprang up along with co-ordinated military programmes. First came the Alliance for Progress and

made

it

the Peace Corps in 1961, then the Agency for International Development (AID) and the International Police Academy in 1962, to be followed by the Central American Common Market in 1963 and the Central American Defence Council (CONDECA) in 1964. AID appealed to Luis;CONDECA to Anastasio. It was a unique combination of all forms of US support for the dictatorship. The new programmes were designed to bring economic growth through industrial expansion and regional integration; a political and ideological clampdown on peasant radicalism through limited agrarian reform and 'civic

action' schemes; military support through US-supervised counter-

revolutionary terror in the countryside.

With industrial growth and economic diversification, the corresponding expansion of the state bureaucracy was at the heart of Luis's strategy to build a 'bridge to democracy' (his own phrase). The new state might provide conditions favourable to a long-lived civilian regime, since the economic

now depended on their co-operation INFONAC. This was the trap which the

interests

of all sectors of the bourgeoisie

with the

new

state agencies like

bourgeoisie could not avoid.

Somocismo kept them marginal, but they

relied

on Somocismo for economic survival. When Luis became the only Somoza to hand over power voluntarily, in 1963, he bequeathed an apparently healthy

1960

42

economy

to his successor, the Liberal lawyer

to 1963, Nicaragua's

GDP showed

Rene Schick. From

an average annual growth rate of

The Somozas - Building the Family State ^"^

8.4%, compared with a figure of only 1 .9% for the preceding decade. Schick showed little desire for independent action, and while he held nominal executive power, real control continued to lie with Luis (through

and Tacho (through the National Guard). Among Schick's few were an attempt to subordinate the National Guard to the state bureaucracy, and his government — with Luis's approval and to Tacho's fury — even took the unprecedented step of punishing abuses of power by serving military officers. As the MCCA foundered, the Schick Government the Party)

initiatives

proved as incapable as its Alliance for Progress counterparts elsewhere of carrying through the reforms it proposed. The reformist path which appealed so little to Tacho was already crumbling when Luis died of a heart attack in 1967, finally resolving the contradiction within the family in favour of Tacho's intransigent militarism he had himself installed as president the ;

same year after

farcical elections.

The bourgeois opposition had been given

a little breathing space to

regroup during the Schick years, but any hope the Conservatives might have had of regaining political ground was obliterated by the manner in which

Somoza Debayle came

The When

1

to power.

967 Massacre Somoza Debayle presented

candidacy for the 1967 number of coahtions which would mirror the shifting balance of bourgeois forces Anastasio

his

elections, the opposition regrouped itself into the first of a

throughout the next decade. Conservatives, Independent Liberals and

Democrats formed the Union Nacional Opositora (National Union UNO) to support the candidacy of Dr Fernando Aguero. The Socialist Party threw itself energetically behind their campaign, insisting that the working class should stand firm behind the unity of the bourgeois opposition. At first the opposition seemed genuinely to beHeve that Somoza would quietly hand over power if defeated in 1967. But Tacho had never had the slightest intention of relinquishing control. Months before the election he had set about one of the family's regular purges of the National Guard and consoHdation of the local power structure of their PLN. At the same time he relied on his new paramilitary shock-force AMROCS to carry

Christian

of Opposition:

out terrorist attacks against the opposition. Sections of the opposition leadership, among them Pedro Joaquin Chamorro and others attracted by the new wave of Latin American Christian Democracy, came to realise that Somoza 's control of the electoral machinery left them with no chance of coming to power through the ballot box. So they organised a mass demonstration to march on the Presidential Palace in Managua. On 22 January 1967, 60,000 people turned up, some armed. In an interview in 1978, the Sandinista leader German Pomares remembered how the episode further discredited the traditional opposition and placed the seal

on the

political

weakness of the bourgeoisie

as a force for social change:

43

.

.

Somocismo and Sandinismo

The Conservatives called the people to a demonstration where they said they would hand out arms to overthrow Somoza. But when the demonstration began, they didn't hand out the arms and the National Guard massacred them.'^^

The FSLN's reading of the Conservative strategy was that they would convince the General Staff of the National Guard to mount a coup against Somoza. This in turn would provoke a popular uprising and military intervention by the Organisation of American States (OAS) along the lines of the invasion of the Dominican Republic two years earlier. The 'free' elections which would then follow would — in the fantasy of Conservative politicians — bring to power a government formed by the bourgeois opposition, under

OAS

supervision.^^

What happened was very

different.

The National Guard opened

fire

on the

demonstrators with machine-guns and tanks, with Somoza himself directing operations from the airforce base outside the city. Official figures put the number killed at 201 but National Guard sources privately admitted at least 600 casualties in the massacre. Opposition leaders including Chamorro were ,

rounded up and jailed. The episode was bourgeoisie. Its talk of an insurrection,

a political

catastrophe for the

whose only purpose was

to create

chaos to justify an OAS intervention, could scarcely have been more cynical. The influence of the Conservative Party over the people fell into a sharp decline. They would never again be able to mobilise the masses in the social

same way. At the same time, some sectors of the bourgeoisie became by the January massacre and showed their first hints of sympathy

radicalised

for the revolutionary alternative of the

The

FSLN.

which followed was also a predictable disaster for the disarrayed opposition parties, and Somoza was declared the winner by the traditional huge majority: this time 70% of the popular vote. In April Luis Somoza died, and the dynasty returned to state terrorism as the only effective means of prolonging family control. By now, with the breakdown of reformist government and the crisis of regional economic development, the contradictions of bourgeois rule in Nicaragua were substantially greater. The FSLN too, as we shall see, was beginning to pose its first serious threat in the mountains of the north, and the third of the Somozas moved swiftly to break both bourgeois and popular opposition. This meant asserting his regional military supremacy within CONDECA, modernising the National Guard and guaranteeing its absolute loyalty to him personally. His strategy rested on his old understanding that control of the Guard was the cornerstone of state power. election

Notes 1

2.

44

Millett, Guardianes de la Dinastia, pp. 234-5 Jesus Miguel Blandon, £«rr^ Sandino y Fonseca

A mador (Managua,

.

The Somozas - Building the Family State

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Impresiones y Troqueles, 1980), pp. 14-24. Carlos Fonseca Amador, Nicaragua - Hora Cero (Havana, Tricontinental, 1969). See Ian H. Birchall, Workers Against the Monolith (London, Pluto Press, 1974); especially pp.36-7, 217-18. La Estrella de Panama, 6 March 1947. For a full account of the 1947 election and the coup against Arguello, see Eduardo Cravjley ^Dictators Never Die (London, Hurst, 1979), pp. 105-8. Jose Benito Escobar, El Principio del Fin (Managua,

SENAPEP,

1979),

p. 25.

14.

Rigoberto Lopez Perez, letter to his mother from San Salvador, 4 September 1956. New York Times, 20 July 1979. Lopez et al, La Caida del Somocismo ... p. 347. V/heelock, Imperialismo y Dictadura, pp.1 58-69. According to NACLA {op. cit.), Somoza paid only ^50 in taxes in 1974. Viktor Morales Henriquez, Lo^ Ultimos Momentos de la Dictadura Somocista (Managua, Editorial Union, 1979), pp. 35-6. Based on conversations with Ministry of Planning officials, Managua,

15.

For

16.

Bell {t^.), Nicaragua:

17.

Adolfo G'lWy La Nueva Nicaragua - Antimperialismo y Lucha de Clases (Mexico City, Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1980), p. 28. Ortega, 50 Anos de Lucha Sandinista, p. 88. Comercio Exterior (Mexico City), March 1976, p. 302.

8.

9.

10. 1

1

12. 13.

,

1979.

18. 19.

a fuller, but

still

incomplete

An

list,

see

Lopez

Ally Under Siege, pp.

et 1

at.,

op.

cit.,

pp. 347-9.

14-15.

,

20. Ibid.

21. Wheelock, op.

cit.

,

Chapter

6, analyses

BANIC and BANAMERICA

in

detail.

22.

Donald Castillo, 'Crisis Generahzada', No. 29 (April-May 1979), pp. 13-17.

23.

INFONAC:

Instituto de

in

Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo,

Fomento Nacional (National

Institute for the

Promotion of Development). 24. Donald Castillo, Tres Modelos de Penetracion de las Empresas Transnacionales en Centroamerica; Mexico City, UNAM (mimeo), 1979. 25. Latin America Economic Report, Vol. VII, No. 39,6 October 1978. 26. Pensamiento Critico, No. 1, March-May 1978. 27. Comercio Exterior, March 1976, p. 303. 28. 18 Anos de Sandinismo; interview with German Pomares Ordonez (mimeo), 1978. 29. Analisis Historico de la Situacion de Nicaragua (mimeo, n.p.) 1978.

45

4. Protecting the

Dynasty

The Army of Occupation ^Nicaragua is a country invaded by its own army, by the National Guard. It reminds me of Paris under the Nazi occupation, but here it 's our own army which is the invader, '*

This is not the place for a detailed analysis of the origins of the National Guard: that is best left to Professor Richard Millett's meticulous study. But it is vital to understand something of the nature of the Guard: how the US conception of a 'professional, apoHtical force' went against the very grain of^ Nicaraguan history (as so often, United States imperialism was marked as much by a colossal failure to understand the target country as by malice); why the complete removal of the Guard as an institution was always a condition of any minimum programme put forward by the FSLN;and why US negotiators clung to the survival of the Guard in some form even wheri Somoza himself had been ditched. The idea of a US-trained and US-commanded force on the pattern of those being created in Haiti, the Philippines and the Dominican RepubHc first surfaced in 1911 and was approved by the Nicaraguan Congress in 1925. Its essence was that it should be apolitical, but by the time the Marines pulled out in 1933, the future of the new army was inextricably linked to that of Somocista Liberalism. The traditional weakness of the nation -state, the almost perpetual state of civil war between Liberals and Conservatives, pronounced regionalism, and the absence of an established nationaj army: all these factors made the US proposal a nonsense. Without the destruction of oligarchical power, in a society where neither oligarchical faction could retain power except by force of arms, any armed force would clearly be the poHtical instrument of one or other ehte. American intervention undermined the creation of a national army still further. From the induction of the

Guard's first 300 recruits, the force was shaped according to US wishes without consulting the Nicaraguan Government. Among other notorious features of the Guardia, the combination of miHtary and police functio ns w as an American idea. Even some Americans had doubts about the feasibility of an apolitical force: *Whether the president is Conservative or Liberal, he

46

Protecting the Dynasty

be composed of men of his own party .'^ Moncada who directly laid the basis for Somoza's It was President conversion of the army into a praetorian guard, by trying to place it under direct personal control and deploying it in an overtly political way against will insist that the organisation

his

in the mid-1 930s, one of the major sources of conflict between Somoza and President Sacasa was the latter's insistence that the Guardia should be restructured in accordance with the Constitution. As the Marines withdrew in 1933, US politicians declared that Washington had no further responsibility for the actions of the Nicaraguan military, a cynical acceptance that the National Guard could now be left to the dictates of Washington's 'emerging strong man' who was to safeguard American interests in Nicaragua. This particular facet of the Good Neighbour Policy left a widespread belief among Nicaraguans, according to Millett, that the USA had created a monster, let it loose, and then washed its hands of the consequences, knowing very well what those consequences would be.^

Sandino. Again,

US

Military Aid to

Somoza

The National Guard remained the

indirect military instrument of the State ^ Departrnerrrand the Pentagon, supported by appropriate levels of assistance. ^^ Already in 1944, Military Academy cadets were sent to Fort Gulick in the

Canal Zone for the final year of their training, and

Somoza was

able to

double his military expenditure in the early 1950s because Washington, alarmed by the 'communism' of Arbenz in Guatemala, opened a military mission in Managua in 1953 and a Military Assistance the following year.

By 1963, an annual

Programme (MAP)

grant of $1.6 million (making

Nicaragua the eleventh largest recipient of military assistance

in the

Americas)

enabled the Guard to expand and smash the FSLN's first guerrilla /oco on the Rio Coco. With the Cuban Revolution and the failure of the Alliance for Progress, Washington updated its old theory of US-trained 'constabularies' and opened the so-called School of the Americas in the Canal Zone to train Latin American officers. As Defence Secretary Robert MacNamara put it, it was of enormous value for the USA 'to have men in positions of leadership who have first-hand knowledge of the way North Americans do things'.** In addition, the installation of the US Southern Command at Quarry Heights in the Canal Zone provided a major stimulus for the creation of a regional defence umbrella to play an intermediate role between the Central American armies and the Pentagon. The result was the establishment of CONDECA, with the USA having full rhember status through its Southern Command and taking part in all joint military operations. Nicaragua had a special place in (J^ the scheme: * From 1946 to 1975 Nicaragua received $23.6 million in MAP and

miscellaneous grants and credits. *

From 1950

to 1975 4,897 National

military training

Guardsmen passed through US

programmes; of these, 4,089 were trained

locally, the

47

Somocismo and Sandinismo highest figure for any Latin American country. *

From 1970

to 1975 Nicaragua put 52 graduates through the

Infantry and Ranger School,

School and

Army Command and

highest figure for *

Army

From 1970

all

to 1975

Civil Affairs

US Army

School, Military Police

General Staff School, again the

Latin America.

303 Nicaraguan students passed through the School

of the Americas.^

Somocismo grew, so did covert assistance in counterGuardsman tells this story: Thirty German shepherd dogs had come into the country. Each trained dog cost 5,000 dollars. They were brought in at the suggestion of the North American Gunter Wagner, who had served in Vietnam. This agent of the CIA arrived in Nicaragua at the request of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who immediately awarded him the rank of colonel. He entered the country under AID cover, assigned as an advisor to the National Police. He restructured the security service and introduced new methods of torture. In reward for his work, Somoza made him a rich man.'^ As the

threat to

insurgency.

An

ex-National

Regional Control and Somoza's Side of the Bargain As the symbiotic relationship between the USA and the National Guard, deepened, Somocismo emerged as the staunchest ally of North American imperialism in Central America and the lynchpin of CONDECA's system of regional repression. There could be no pretence that CONDECA was designed to meet external aggression - there has been none since its inception - and

CONDECA

did nothing to stop the only international conflict in the region

since 1964, the brief

1969 'soccer war' between Honduras and

El Salvador,

despite the fact that one of the organisation's founding principles was the

suppression of rivalries between national armies which might weaken the strategic defence

of the region^^From the beginning, Guatemala and Nicaragua

(having the strongest guerrilla movements) were the principal targets for

CONDECA

operations, and even the relatively mild Conservative incursions from Costa Rica had convinced Somoza of the need to secure his borders by destroying revolutionary^gipups in neighbouring countries by means of joint CONDECA manoeuvreTl The tradition of providing National Guard support to the USA had already been well established by Somoza Garcia. As early as 1950 he had offered troops to fight in Korea, and two years later was plotting with the Truman administration to overthrow the progressive Guatemalan Government, eventually allowing the overt use of Nicaraguan territory by CIA agents and Guatemalan exiles for the overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz, who had enraged the United States by expropriating United Fruit Company lands as part of his agrarian reform programme.^ Even before the guerrilla struggle of Fidel Castro in Cuba, Luis Somoza was seUing arms to the Batista dictatorship, and strong economic and military links with Cuban exiles remained

48

,

Protecting the Dynasty

Cubans were allowed to organise military camps in Nicaragua and were given economic incentives which established Managua, with Miami, as the twin poles of the Cuban mafia network. Cubans cornered the cigar industry in Esteli, and the Cuban Eddy Rodriguez, a close business associate of Somoza's, was awarded after the Revolution. Anti-Castro

training

of post-earthquake Managua. The paranoia of the Somozas that Fidel was behind every Nicaraguan opposition movement even extended to the Conservative adventures of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. The most notorious episode in US-Nicaraguan collaboration was of course the enthusiastic offer of support for the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 in which the exile force put together by John F. Kennedy launched its bombing raids from a Nicaraguan air-base codenamed 'Happy Valley' and used the Atlantic Coast town of Puerto Cabezas as the departure point for its flotilla of landing craft. Four years later, when direct military intervention became an embarrassment to the USA as it did after the Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic, President Johnson resorted to a new military tactic, the creation of an inter-American Peacekeeping Force' under the cover of the Organisation of American States. Again Somoza responded eagerly, despatching a National Guard contingent commanded by Julio Gutierrez, the Guard officer who 14 years later was to be proposed by the USA as an additional member of the Junta of National Reconstruction during the 1979 lucrative contracts for planning the rebuilding

insurrection!

Finally, inevitably ,

Somoza

offered the

USA

counter-

insurgency troops for use in the Vietnam War. The offer came in late 1967 after the defeat

of the

FSLN guerrilla

at

Pancasan and had the dual advantage

USA

with recently proven anti-guerrilla troops and giving the National Guard the chance of firsthand combat experience supervised by the of providing the

To Somoza's chagrin, the offer was methods of the USA in Vietnam and made extensive use of American war veterans and South Vietnamese mercenaries in the later war against the Sandinistas. After 1964 Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua joined forces for more than a dozen counter-insurgency operations by CONDECA,^ and, although Honduras distanced itself from CONDECA after its 1969 war with El Salvador,

masters of the art of counter-insurgency. refused, but he continued to admire the

the right-wing dictatorship of Policarpo Paz Garcia in the late 1970s brought as FSLN actions in Nicaragua increased. For the US Southern Command, CONDECA proved an excellent instrument. It was' politically more coiivenient for local forces to assume the old US role of

Honduras back into the fold

regional policeman,

and although Panama and Costa Rica

resisted

American

£ressure to upgrade their observer status in joint manoeuvres, anti-guerrilla strategies in Central

America were

in general standardised.

insurge'ncy operations were directly linked in to the

Counter-

CIA through US

military

CONDECA

brought the USA one further benefit: the right to use the territory of any member country as a base for future attacks on Cuba. The direct control of CONDECA by the USA was most clearly demonstrated^fter the 1972 Managua earthquake, when the missions in each country, and

49

Somocismo and Sandinismo American military mission,

in

conjunction with the Guatemalan dictator

Carlos Arana Osorio, brought in US, Honduran and Salvadorean troopsjo^ 'stability' during the brief breakdown of National Guard cpntrjol. was the second collaboration that year between Somoza and Arana: in March 1972 they had personally directed military operations against

maintain It

Salvadorean rebels.

Arana was

a business associate as well as a miHtary ally, and it would be suppose that Somoza's use of the Guard outside Nicaragua's frontiers was motivated exclusively by loyalty to US military interests. His father had established a flourishing cattle-smuggling operation from Costa Rica in the 1940s — one sound reason for sending Nicaraguan troops to support the Picado Government during the 1949 Costa Rican civil war. From these false to

humble beginnings Somoza investment in the region had grown to an estimated ^30 million in Guatemala alone, principally in real estate and hotels and often in partnership with Cuban exile speculators. Furthermore, the Somozas' regional economic power was extended by their control of regional trade and ownership of the national airline LANICA, the shipping line MAMENIC and the Gulf of Fonseca ferry linking Nicaragua and El Salvador.

The The

Military, the Family,

and the State

Somoza's economic development of the military caste in Nicaragua, the unique relationship between the military and state power which made the Guardia capable of exceptional barbarity against its own people as the Somocista state crumbled. There was never any danger that the FSLN would fall into the Chilean trap of trusting in the 'professionalism' and independence of the armed forces: without the destruction of the National Guard as an institution there could be no removal of the Somoza state. Anastasio Somoza Garcia had converted the Guard into a personal instrument through an institutionalised blend of privilege, corruption and intimidation, and the growth of the Somoza state was determined by the consolidation of the Guard. By 1939 the model was complete, a date which coincided with the internal reorganisation of the Liberal Party. An enormous quota of state power had been amassed by the Guard over the previous decade: first military control of communications, then internal revenues and the railways, and later the postal service, immigration, the health service, liquor sales and prostitution, permits for all arms imports, including even industrial dynamite. Loyalty to Somoza was a prerequisite for the upper ranks, and any officer who became too popular was transferred or dismissed before he could become a threat, a system perfected by the 1948 constitutional amendments which gave Somoza sole power over promotions and transfers. Mass retirements, often a whole year's promotion from the Military Academy were commonplace, and senior officers taken off active service received a full pension and a guaranteed job in the state bureaucracy or a effective use of the Guardia as a defender of

interests directly reflected the

,

50

Protecting the Dynasty

Somoza-controlled industry, with ample opportunity for tax evasion and perhaps the gift of a farm thrown in. Expertise was no criterion for Guard officers looking for work in the government: *Over half the directors of the National Bank are retired officers whose knowledge of banking could be written on the head of a very small pin.'^ Enforced retirements continued

end - after the September 1978 insurrection were pensioned off. Personnel changes were especially frequent at election time: loyalty to the ritual fraud was essential, as the Guardia was in charge of vote -counting. The cult ivation of family members for military leadership after spells at West Point or Sandhurst was crucial to the Somoza strategy. As well as the supreme post of Jefe Director, they paid special attention to the command of combat units whose loyalty had to be unquestionable. Somoza's halfbrother Jose took charge of armoured columns and his son Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero was given command of the crack Escuela de Entrenamiento Basico de Infanteria (Basic Infantry Training School: EEBI) when it was set up in 1978, aggravating an already acute spHt between ehte troops and ordinary soldiers. Although the $75 a month of a private was relatively good pay in the late 1970s, Guard salaries were traditionally kept low as an incentive for troops to supplement their income through illegal activities. as a

means of control

until the

30 of the Guard's 35 senior

officers

The^professionalisation of the military originally intended the 1920s gave

way

Guard,

Guillermo Mendieta described

real

Lt. Col.

godfather type.

by

the

USA

in

^

to the purchase of loyalty. After his desertion from the

He can

this mentality:

'Somoza

is

'^^

a

pass an ordinary soldier and say, "I hear your

mama

is sick." Then hell reach into his pocket and peel off thousand dollar and say, "This is for the air-fare and this is for the clinic in Miami." You cannot talk against him, but you feel that if he likes you hell never let you down.'^° A local version of the American Dream ran through the Guard, the constant, pathetic hope of campesino recruits that they might one day rise to senior positions in an arbitrary system. But the officer ranks remained loyal because of their vested interest as a class in the Somocista state. Military privilege and kickbacks from 'dirty business' became a way of life. Each rank carried with it a guaranteed fringe income from prostitution and extortion, with the lowest raso (private) making a few cordobas from onthe-spot fines and senior officers growing fabulously rich from appointment to the most lucrative jobs like provincial commanders, customs controllers and immigration officers. The comandante of an important town like Leon or Chinandega could count on $20,000 a month from bars, brothels, contraband, and traffic fines. Robbing peasant families, especially during counterinsurgency operations in the north, was considered a legitimate perk, and the robbery and rape of prostitutes were commonplace. Anti-guerrilla operations brought special rewards: not only did the Guard have the right to confiscate the homes of peasants massacred as Sandinista sympathisers during the 1974-7 state of siege, but counter-insurgency forces were virtually turned into mercenaries within their own army. Tours of duty (restricted to a maximum of six months) brought triple pay for officers, double pay for ordinary soldiers and bonuses for efficiency based on a simple head-count

bills

51

Somocismo and Sandinismo of those

killed.

The Guardians

privileged status gave

them separate shops, schools and

hospitals, exclusive residential areas like the suburbs of Las Colinas

Fontana

and Villa

south of Managua, and subsidised food and clothing, including uniforms and boots produced in Somoza-owned factories. A in

the

hills

1972 earthquake, a powerful ehte which entered the war against the FSLN fighting not only for its life but for its class interests. With the destruction of Managua, members of the Guard were given priority for rehousing, and the custom was for soldiers to help themselves to whatever building materials they needed and carry them off in military trucks. Officers profited from the new state monopoly on building permits and import Hcences, while the lower ranks ran successful protection rackets to 'guard' damaged property. As outlying barrios sprung up in the wake of the earthquake, Guard officers moved in to corner the concessions for opening new bus routes to link working-class districts like Open 3 and Las Americas with the factories and commercial zones of the dismembered city. The upsurge of FSLN activities and the spectacular new opportunities for graft among the officer class opened up serious rifts within the Guard: not military bourgeoisie grew rapidly, especially after the

threats to the loyalty of the elite,

among

who

profited hugely from the system,

came to realise that upward mobility was largely a myth. Treatment of rasos by their superiors was appalling, and the Frente Sandinista was able to grasp and exploit this weakness in the military, demanding salary increases for common soldiers to 500 cordobas (then $71) a month as one of their conditions for freeing hostages taken in a successful commando attack on the house of a leading Somocista in 1974 (see below). FSLN comandante Tomas Borge gave his own view of the demoralisation which he had witnessed among junior Guardsmen but a growing resentment

the lower ranks as they

while in prison: 'They complain bitterly about the discrimination of which

they are victims, the privileges enjoyed by officers, and the treated:

low

salaries,

way they

are

constant confinement to barracks, the danger of losing

their lives, faced with the

growing combativity of the people.'** Some began

to desert.

/

By the yme of the final insurrectioii, it was dear that Somoza'stransformation of the Guardia into an instrument of personal power had built serious \ contradictions into the military machine. There were acute divisions between ^ officers and men; the importance of a high kill-ratio as a means of securing promotion had left the National Guard adept at massacring peasants but inI / effective in rooting out the FSLN. And the concentration on family/ controlled elite units like the 2,000-strong EEBI made for poor cornbat readiness among^ the remaining 5,500 or dinary troop s. j

I

An Army

Within an

The exaggerated need

'^ 52

Army

for eHte units

was

a natural

consequence of Somoza's

Protecting the Dynasty failure to destroy the

insurgency.

The

FSLN,

as

we

shall see,

through traditional counter-

rriethods of counter-revolution are familiar

from South East

Asia to Latin America, and Nicaragua was a textbook case of the crude application of violence beneath a veneer of cosmetic reform projects. The road

map of modern Nicaragua

is like a diagram of the counter-revolution. The Americans began it, building new roads through the mountains of Las Segovias in 1929 to improve local surveillance and mop up a potentially hostile labour force by offering employment. Eisenhower continued the

tradition, giving $4.5 million in aid for Nicaragua's only serviceable road to

Managua and town of Rama. The Guard refined the technique in the years after the FSLN's first major guerrilla operations, linking Matagalpa with the regional command post and concentration camp of Waslala. They drove another the remote eastern departamento of Zelaya, a stretch between the

road through to the village of Matiguas, this time passing through the zone of

mountain of Pancasan and causing a which encouraged the settlement of new latifundistas. The Guardia populated the region ^'\\.\\jueces de mesta - part local magistrates, part informers — and resettled peasants by force in the remote and unproductive southern region of Nueva Guinea, a US-inspired 'agrarian reform' programme which allowed for controlled colonisation and the formaheaviest guerrilla activity around the

steep rise in land values

tion of counter-revolutionary peasant recruits.

The

guerrilla

^^

zones also became the centre for the Somoza regime's

vaccination and birth-control programmes, including the notorious 'Friends

of the Americas' programme, under which

US

volunteers were alleged to be

To way of implementing

introducing sterilising agents in the guise of anti-polio vaccines. Nicaraguans, such projects were widely seen as a President

Lyndon Johnson's dictum

that

it

was cheaper to

kill a guerrilla

before s/he was born.*"'

A $14-million loan from the United States allowed Somoza to finance the most famous of Nicaragua's programmes of counter-revolution through reform: the so-called Institute of Peasant Welfare, INVIERNO, whose emphasis was on technical assistance, cooperatives and marketing schemes, and the creation of peasant leaders crudely bought with gifts of transistor radios and other trappings of North American civilisation. Despite the considerable sums invested, these 'civic action' programmes failed to achieve two of their key objectives: support from the local population for the armed forces, and the backing of the bourgeoisie. In Nicaragua, hatred for the Guard was too deeply rooted, and the bourgeoisie too fragmented to commit itself decfsively to US reform plans. It was impossible for an army like the National Guard to pretend to work among the people. Its whole history and formation had driven it in the opposite direction. Somoza's only answer, in the face of a revolutionary challenge which continued to grow, was to create elite units indoctrinated with an antipopular, anti-national. mentality. The doctrine of national security took firm root in Nicaragua, showing itself as an extraordinary paranoia among the soldiers at any sign of opposition activity, no matter how peaceful. 53

Somocismo and Sandinismo Nicaraguans came to fear for their lives from the nervousness of troops were always Hable to open fire without reason. To anyone visiting

who

is the most obvious change. The hatred which existed before, of an army whose only logical response was massive and indiscriminate violence: all this has gone, replaced by a new trust between the people and the forces of the FSLN. It was common for officers in charge of peasant massacres in the north of the country to have the nicknames of wild animals - 'El ChacaV ('the Jackal')

Nicaragua after the Revolution, this

and

fear,

or 'El Tigre' ('the Tiger'). Elite units like 'Los Cascabeles' ('the Rattlesnakes') travelled

around

in

army jeeps

revived the shock-force of the

AM ROCS,

^"^

and the new

stencilled with a skull 1

930s

in the

state terrorism

and crossbones. Somoza

shape of the paramilitary group

was underwritten with doubled

expenditure on the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) and the Oficina de

Seguridad Nacional (OSN) between 1970 and 1975. The orange jeeps of the hated BECAT (Brigadas Especiales Contra Actos de Terrorismo) swarmed in the streets of every city, accompanied by 400 plain-clothes orejas (informers: literally 'ears') in

Managua

alone.

June 1978 the FSLN's magazine Lucha Sandinista reported the formation of the Guardians supreme elite force, the EEBI, with an initial budget of $2.3 million: an army within an army, which was to serve as the vehicle for the ascent to absolute power of Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero, son of the dictator, and like his father nicknamed 'Tachito', or 'El Chiguin' - a Nicaraguan word meaning 'tough little kid'. The autonomous control which Somoza Portocarrero, while still in his twenties, was granted over the new corps alarmed even senior officers of the Guard. He cultivated an intense personal loyalty among EEBI recruits, who enjoyed the Guard's best living conditions and most modern weapons. They had cinemas, new recreation facilities and air-conditioned quarters against the intense Managua heat. They were armed with M-16s and Israeli Uzi sub-machineguns, instead of the ubiquitous Garand rifles of the other troops. Combat skill was particularly rewarded in the EEBI, to such an extent that soldiers were rumoured to fight over Sandinista corpses for the bonuses handed out by Somoza 's son to his favourite soldiers, who could aspire to the highest honour of becoming boinas negras (black berets). Hatred of the people was a matter of systematic propaganda, from the EEBI's magazine El Infante (The Infantryman), with its pictures of Nazi troops and swastikas, to the call-and-response drills which Managuans claimed could be heard a full kilometre away. Under the direction of the American mercenary Michael 'Mike the Merc' Echannis and his assistant, the South Vietnamese Nguyen Van Nguyen, two of these became In

especially notorious as training routines:

*Quien es el enemigo de

la

Guardia?

'

C^ho

pueblo! 'CTht people!') 'Quien es el padre de la Guardia? ('Who

is

the

enemy

of the Guard?')

'El

'

is

the father of the Guard?')

'Somoza!' 'La

54

Guardia arriba!' {'Vp with the Guard!')

Protecting the Dynasty 'El pueblo abajo! CDov^n with the people!'); and 'Quienes somos? {''^ho are we?') 'Somos tigres! ('We are tigers! ') 'Que comen los tigres?' {'VJh2Li do tigers eat?') '

'

'

'Sangre! '{'moodiV)

'Sangre de quien?

'

C^hose blood?') (The blood of the

'Sangre del pueblo!

people!')

violence of the EEBI led to unpredictable, being an object I of The even among other National Guard When EEBI units were elitist

its

fear

divisions.

Guard posts during the 1979 Managua up this message on short-wave radio: 'Attention all mobile units in Monsenor Lezcano and Las Americas [two Managua barrios] The Combat Battalion and the EEBI are headed in your direction. Take cover immediately in your vehicles so they don't mistake you for the enemy, because these people are coming through like a cyclone sent in to relieve beleaguered

insurrection, a resident picked

.

and

killing

Israeli

When

it

anything that moves.'

Arms

for the Military Elite

became j^n embarrassment

for the United States to continue direct

affns supplies to Nicaragua, a surrogate rapidly

position as

emerged, and from his

commander of the EEBI Somoza Portocarrero was

instrumental

in'geUing the family's reward for 30 years of loyalty to Zionism in the United

Nations and other international forums. The expanding industry found an idealmarket in Nicaragua.

Israeli

From Mexico,

armaments

the solidarity

publication Gaceta Sandinista reported that in the second half of October

1978 the Somoza regime received

large consignments of war materiel from Government delivered anti-aircraft artillery and rockets, 500 Uzi sub-machineguns, 500 Galil assault rifles, bullet-proof vests, ammunition, mortars, miHtary vehicles and four naval patrol boats. The consignment was received by Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero at the Israel.

The

Israeli

dictator's private airport It

was

on

his estate at Montelimar.^^

entirely appropriate that 'El Chiguin' should have taken delivery.

By now he had acquired

a reputation for

managing arms deals independently,

not only with Israel but with Spain and Argentina. The rifles

to be sent to the

EEBI had

arrived without the

father or the General Staff of the National Guard. ^^

first Galil

assault

knowledge of either

The

Israeli

his

connection

continued to the end. As late as April 1979, IsraeH military technicians arrived to instal a mobile air-defence system, and in May Israeli ships landed a further consignment of light artillery, armoured cars, missile launchers, helicopters and transport vehicles as the Guard was dying on its feet. Israel has been interested since the 1960s in penetrating the attractive Latin American arms market, signing successive arms supply contracts with

55

Somocismo and Sandinismo the dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel in the 1970s accounted for 81% of arms imported into El Salvador, and a staggering 98% of all those received by Nicaragua. Israel itself accounted for almost half of the ?2.5 billion which the US extended in military aid during 1978, and took up observer status with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Organisation of American States. Despite the ostensible pressure from the Carter administration that other Western governments should discontinue arms sales to Somoza, it was not difficult for the FSLN to conclude that United States imperialism continued to underpin the National Guard until the

moment of its

final collapse.

^^

Notes Interview with Fernando Cardenal SJ in San Jose, Costa Rica, July 1978. 2. US Minister Eberhardt, 1926. See Richard Millett, Guardianes de la Dinastia, p. 69. 3. Millett op. cit.,p. 234. 4. Quoted in Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo, No. 29, April-May 1979, p. 21. 5. NACLA: The Pentagon's Proteges: US Training Programmes for Foreign Military VtrsonntV Latin America and Empire Report, Vol. X, No. 1, 1.

,

January 1976. 6. J. A. Robleto Siles, Yo Deserte de la Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua (San Jose, EDUCA, 1979), p. 155. 7. Susanne Jonas, 'Anatomy of an Intervention', in NACLA, Guatemala (New York, 1974), pp. 57-73. 8. The most important of these CONDECA joint operations were codenamed 'Fraternidad' (1964), 'Falconview' and 'Aguila I' (1965), 'Nicarao' (1966), 'Aguila II' (1970), 'Pina' (1971), in which militant Honduran peasant organisations were destroyed, and 'Aguila VI' (1976), in which South Vietnamese counter-insurgency advisors were used. 9. Richard Millett, quoted in Newsweek, 16 July 1979. 10. Newsweek, 16 July 1979. Interviewed in El Dia, Mexico City, 8 September 1978. 1 1. 12. On Somoza's agrarian reform programme, see La Prensa, Managua, 30 December 1977, article entitled 'La Reforma Agraria: Farsa y Gran Pinata.'

Doris TiiQiino, Inside the Nicaraguan Revolution (translated by Margaret Randall),(Vancouver, New Star Books, 1978), pp. 137-9. 14. AMROCS: Asociacion de Militares Retirados, Obreros y Campesinos Somocistas (Association of Somocista Retired Soldiers, Workers and 13.

Peasants). 15.

Gaceta Sandinista (Organo del Comite Mexicano de Solidaridad con Pueblo de Nicaragua), Year III, No. 3, September-December 1978.

16. Ibid. 17.

56

For an extensive article on Israeli arms sales to Latin America, see Latin America Weekly Report, WR-80-19, 16 May 1980.

el

5.

The 1972 Earthquake and After: Somocismo in Crisis

Somocismo

in the

1970s

There are very few unchanging principles governing the relations between Some however do exist, and for the Americans the Monroe Doctrine is one of the most enduring of them all. '(James Theberge, US Ambassador to Nicaragua from 1975 to 1977). nations.

1960s was the period of the Somoza dictatorship's greatest strength, its progressive decomposition. The story of Somocismo in the 1970s is at least in part the story of two American ambassadors. Anastasio Somoza Debayle's first presidential term already faced mounting difficulties: the rising influence of the FSLN and the establishment of its first urban bases; economic difficulties; the memory of the massacre of hundreds of opponents in the 1967 election campaign; and even hints of discontent among younger officers of the Guard who turned their eyes south to the nationaHst experiments of the Peruvian generals. The election of Richard Nixon to the White House was a great boost for Somoza. Nixon remembered Nicaragua as the rare Latin American country which had given a friendly reception to his vice-presidential tour in 1958, and in 1970 he appointed an ambassador, Turner Shelton, who became an overt propagandist for Somocismo and a close personal friend of the dictator. Shelton too was influential in opening a new model of direct US investment in Nicaragua. NACLA described him in these terms: Turner Shelton, a personal friend and campaign contributor to President Nixon, was about to be retired from the foreign service when Nixon appointed him ambassador to Nicaragua in 1970. From 1966 tc 1970 he had been consulgeneral in Nassau where he had ties with Bebe Rebozo and Howard Hughes: in fact, it was Shelton who arranged a personal meeting between Hughes and If the

the next decade brought

Somoza when Hughes portrait

of

still

first

came

to Nicaragua in 1972.'* Shelton,

graces the Nicaraguan 20-cordoba

Thomas Whelan (ambassador from 1951

bill,

followed

whose

in the tradition

to 1961): he spoke not a

word of

and he to survive the downfall of the Nixon administration despite Somoza's strenuous efforts to keep him in the job. Even for the Ford presidency,

Spanish. But Shelton did

little

to impress the State Department,

failed

57

Somocismo and Sandinismo Shelton's total identification with a corrupt regime was an embarrassment. The State Department needed a change of image, a more subtle touch in its relations with Managua. Washington's choice was James Theberge, not a career diplomat but a right-wing academic, author of Russia in the Caribbean

and The Soviet Presence in Latin America. Theberge continued to encourage cooperativism in the north of the country (it was during his ambassadorship that INVIERNO was created) while the Guardia unleashed counter-revolutionary terror on an unprecedented scale during the

many

first

two years of his

3,000 peasants in suspected guerrilla zones. Back in Managua, Theberge looked for ways of tranquillising the newly active 'civic' opposition, hoping in particular that his track record would allow him to prise the Moscow-line Socialist Party and its trade unions away from Pedro Joaquin Chamorro's recently founded UDEL (Union Democratica de Liberacion) coalition. The new ambassador implied no change of policy merely a modification of the tactics required to keep Somoza in power. Although Shelton's personal inclinations might have encouraged the regime to survive through brute force, there was a logical continuity in the policies of the two ambassadors. Washington recognised major structural weaknesses in the dictatorship: the strategy to strengthen it was twofold. First unite the Liberals and the Conservatives to consolidate bourgeois rule; then split the opposition by drawing the bourgeoisie away from the left, giving Chamorro and his like room to breathe and a sympathetic ear. The first part of the strategy fell to Shelton, the second to Theberge.^ Somoza's re-election in 1971 had not run smoothly, but Shelton stepped in to help. As so often before, a pact was the answer, this time with the Conservative leader Fernando Aguero. It was the final breakdown of legitimacy of the two-party system, and the opposition which agreed to be bought off in this way was now no more than a rump, known dismissively to Nicaraguans as the 'zancudo' (mosquito) Conservatives. The Shelton-inspired deal raised Conservative participation in the legislature to 40% and installed a Constituent Assembly which was to reform the Constitution yet again and pave the way for Somoza's re-election in 1974. Its most novel feature was the appointment of a triumvirate to govern from May 1972 to December 1974. Aguero took one seat as his reward, with the other two going to Somoza nominees. The dictator, needless to say, kept control of the National Guard and continued to exercise real power, representing Nicaragua as before as head of state in international forums. Bourgeois dissidence was unable to prevent the pact, but there was nothing the government or the USA could do to stem mounting political mobilisation among workers and students. service, massacring as

as

,

The Earthquake tl)

A

little after midnight on 23 December 1972, with the triumvirate only seven months old, the centre of Managua was torn apart by a massive earth-

58

The 1972 Earthquake and After

Up

20,000 died, 75% of the

housing and 90% of its commerand damage was conservatively estimated by the United Nations at $772 million. Every contradiction of the Somoza regime was immediately heightened. Overnight, patterns of economic control and Somoza's relationship with the bourgeoisie were transformed. A boom in the construction industry brought new opportunities for speculation as well as an explosion in the size and militancy of the urban working class. In the aftermath of the earthquake. National Guard corruption was seen at its ugliest. The importance of the earthquake as a pivotal moment in the disquake.

cial

to

capacity was destroyed

integration of

The

beyond

city's

repair,

Somocismo can hardly be

overstated.

true nature of the Guardia stood exposed. Officers led their

men

in

systematic looting of the ruined capital and a complete breakdown of discipline meant that Somoza was unable to guarantee public order without the prompt arrival of 600 US soldiers and other Central American troops. Any

remaining public respect for the military evaporated. Until the Guardia recovered

its

Managua

discipline,

residents described the city as under virtual

US troops storming through the devastated streets, shouting orders in English to a bewildered population and incinerating corpses with flamethrowers.^ In its rush to get American occupation, leaving an indelible impression of

rich, the

Guardia forgot

all

about

guerrillas.

A

thriving black

market sprang

up, filled with stolen property and medical and food aid from overseas.

One

observer described the sale of goods donated by Catholic relief agencies and

opened shops staffed by the National Guard: you can even buy anything from a small electric

foreign governments in hastily

Tinned food, clothing

.

.

.

generator to a water purifier, electric torches, pickaxes and spades, complete factory -sealed blood transfusion equipment. There are also shops selling goods from looted warehouses; in Chichigalpa, for example, where the military commander's wife looks after marketing goods stolen from the

Casa Mantica in Managua.' Guardia demolition crews directed by Anastasio

Somoza Portocarrero made off with anything they could shift: toilet fittings, furniture, street-lights, electric wiring. And unemployed rural labourers of Carazo and the north were pressganged to help in the so-called

'Civil

Re-

construction Corps'.

Somoza

described the earthquake as a 'revolution of possibilities', and

members of the

was accurate enough. means of pulling the country out of its stagnation and inducing immediate economic growth, but at the cost of new economic distortion and an insoluble political crisis which went to the heart of bourgeois rule. The loans contracted for reconstruction projects brought certainly for

ruling elite the phrase

Paradoxically, the earthquake was a

an escalating foreign debt, and Somoza's increased tendency to stave off economic disaster by resorting to foreign loans was reflected in an external debt which shot up from $255 million in 1972 to more than $1 billion by 1978, half of it at interest rates above 8%.'* Somoza himself cornered the reconstruction of Managua. His company ESPESA took charge of demolition work; Inmuebles SA of real estate speculation; a host of other companies, generally with a monopoly, took

59

SomoQismo and Sandinismo on contracts for concrete, building materials, metal structures, roofing, and plastics. Fifty new construction companies mushroomed, the most prominent controlled by the Somoza clan, and speculative property corporations threw together cheap housing (1 1,132 temporary homes in 1973 and 4,033 permanent ones),^ which they resold at four or five times their original value. The streets were no longer paved with the traditional asphalt but with paving-stones (adoquines) from a Somoza factory using Somoza-produced cement. The quality of new housing was scarcely better than what had gone before. 'Our climate lends itself to good living without our needing to make massive investments in housing,' Somoza was later to tell Le Monde in a cynical 1978 interview. Politicians like Alfonso Lovo Cordero of the ruling triumvirate were awarded building contracts even when lower tenders were submitted, and speculation with prime housing land became a national scandal. In one incident, Cornelio Hueck - President of the Constituent Assembly — bought up empty land earmarked for temporary housing for the homeless. Having paid $17,000, he resold the land two days later to the state housing bank for $1.2 million - the funds having been received from USAID.^ But whatever private doubts the USA may have had, it was no time for niceties. Above all, the strong man had to be pulled out of the chaos. Although some of the aid which arrived was disinterested — like a Cuban hospital in Managua — the purpose of the vast American aid effort was clear: to shore up the dictatorship, and there was evidence that a large part of ostensibly humanitarian funds was placed at the disposal of the Pentagon. Even AID money not expressly designed to prop up the dictatorship ended up in Somoza's pockets asbestos,

because of the monopoly control he exercised over the reconstruction

money paid for. The sums were large: $78 million from ($12.7 million in emergency grant assistance and a further $65.3 million in reconstruction loans) plus $54 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) — a striking contrast to the USA's later meagre initial

projects which that

AID

.| 1

SjLr

*^ K )t-i

response to the devastation of the 1979 war.

The earthquake accelerated the class struggle in Nicaragua. It came in the_ middle of a two-year drought which wrecked the production of staple food crops, bringing hunger to the countryside and a wave of peasant migration to the capital. The rapid growth in construction and related industries absorbed many of Managua's unemployed, causing a dramatic rise in numbers of the the urban proletariat. Rampant government corruption, coupled with longer working hours, lower wages, a generalised attack on working-class living standards, and the agitational work of the FSLN, all brought a corresponding rise in class consciousness. Organised working-class activity was on the increase, highlighted by campesino land invasions in the north and the big 1973 construction workers' strike led by the CGT, the trade union federation of the Socialist Party. The aftermath of the earthquake also introduced a new phrase into the vocabulary of the bourge.ois opposition: competencia desleal, unfair or disloyal competition.

The

rules

of the

capitalist

game, and withjj^

the fragile consensus which held the dictatorial state together, had been

60

The 1972 Earthquake and After broken. ^

Aliew phase of absolute power opened. The triumvirate survived in name ^z Sbmoza ruled by decree from the newly invented position of President of the National Emergency Committee. To comply with the new constitutional ruling that no serving military officer could stand for the presidency, Somoza gave up the title of Jefe Director of the National Guard and instead took the title of Jefe Supremo of the Armed Forces. The September 1974 election, which Somoza won with the traditional overwhelming majority over the traditional hand-picked Conservative opponent, was boycotted by a number of dissident bourgeois politicians including Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who by now had organised an opposition coalition, UDEL. For their pains, 27 leaders of the boycott were arrested and deprived of their poHtical rights until March the following year. But they did not give up. They filed charges with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, a body composed of one representative of Somoza 's Supreme Court, two of the Liberal Party and the guaranteed 40% minority of two Conservatives. The charge of fraud, bribery and coercion was dismissed out of hand, but the Tribunal's replies to the two charges of constitutional violation were remarkable for their candour. The accusation that Somoza 's rule had been continuous, thereby infringing the Constitution, was quashed by citing the two-year rule of the figurehead triumvirate, and the Tribunal ruled that Somoza's new post as Jefe Supremo of the Guardia was purely administrative, and did not disqualify him from the presidency on the grounds of active military service. The Tribunal even admitted that the Junta's February decree creating the post of Jefe Supremo had been specifically designed to allow Somoza's candidacy in September. It was a bizarre attempt to provide a legal fiction for a wholly but

discredited regime.

The Frente Sandinista had other more impressive ways of registering its Somocismo. On 27 December 1974 it launched a spectacular commando raid in Managua (described in Chapter 6). This was the catalyst disgust with

for a

new chapter of institutionalised

repression. Within hours,

Somoza

decreed a state of siege martial law permanent military courts and press censorship, just as much to smash trade union militancy as to drive the FSLN into ,

,

ciandestinity and prevent the raid

from having

its

desired impact

on

class

consciousness and perhaps fusing two hitherto unconnected facets of the popular struggle - the guerrilla war and the open trade-union work of the

PSN. The new

repressive legislation might also allow

all

Nicaraguan capitalists

to increase their profits by permitting super-exploitation of the workforce, a

calculated

move by Somoza

to

woo back some of the

bourgeois support

forfeited after the earthquake.

The emergency press laws were draconian. All newspaper copy had to be submitted to the National Guard before publication, and was sent back with all offending articles blocked out in red ink. An offending article was any which made reference to trade unions, labour disputes, allegations of defective public services, including transport, roads and housing conditions - precisely the issues which the mass movement was beginning to mobilise

61

Somocismo and Sandinismo in the barrios. The Church, whose acceptance of Somoza was fast waning, protested vigorously about the peasant massacres which were taking place under the blanket of press censorship: Somoza's only response was to

around

extend censorship to include Church publications and radio broadcasts. Even US Ambassador Theberge acknowledged the scale of human rights violations, and with the election of Jimmy Carter in November 1976 and the ensuing *Human Rights' policy of the US Government, Somoza's attempts to dismember the popular opposition led to grave doubts in Washington about the future viability of the dictatorship. Somoza's repression of the mass movement was designed in part to restore favourable conditions for the capitalist class as a whole, but the result was the opposite. Within the bourgeoisie, contradictions merely deeperied, ajnd ,y:^^^institutionalised terror frightened off every bourgeois group which preferred t^ / government by consensus. At the same time, the reign of terror of the mid1970s failed to root out the popular movement led by the FSLN, and the basis for mass radicalisation grew. New possibilities for economic growth, by contrast, contracted. By the end of 1977, the combination of these three factors threw Somocismo into its acute final crisis. "

V

From

Class Dictatorship to Family

Monopoly The :

Crisis

of

Bourgeois Rule

may have been the style of 1972 earthcLuake the dynasty was not merely_the arbitrary exercise of power by a single family. It would not have survived for so long without recognition from Washington and from Somoza's fellow Nicaraguan capitalists that the dictatorship was the most appropriate in^struGreed, theft, corruption and repression

Somocismo. But

ment

until the

for sustaining the

power of private

enterprise as a whole. Certainly

there were contradictions within the bourgeoisie.

BANIC,

BAN AMERICA

may

have found the style at times unpalatable; but these bourgeois groups depended on Somocismo to destroy working-class organisation, to maintain the militarily imposed order within

and especially the smaller

capitalists

of making profits. Uritil the post earthquake period, divisions within the bourgeoisie were always secondary to class unity. At each critical stage of development the bourgeoisie relied on the Somozas: in the 1950s to profit from the cotton boom, in the 1960s

which they could go about

their business

to receive state finance for industrial development.

They benefited

directly

from Somoza's relationship with the USA through the sales of their exports, and in specific instances the special friendship between Managua and Washington brought them rich pickings. With the US blockade of Cuba, for example, the businessmen of

the

USA From

BANAMERICA joined Somoza in

supplying

with Cuba's former sugar quota. its earliest

days,

Somoza power had

rested

on the family's

ability to

achieve dominance within the ruling class and then reach mutually beneficial

agreements

62

— political

pacts on one hand, commercial alliances on the other

The 1972 Earthquake and After

-

with the remaining bourgeois sectors. Accepting these rules, the bourgeoisie

grouped

itself into

BANIC and BANAMERICA, and

consolidation, their need for

Somoza grew.

flourished.

Agribusiness,

With

their

commerce and

industry were allotted, with each group enjoying certain preserves,^ and the crude monopolistic control they exercised over the mass of the Nicaraguan people produced an increasingly violent class conflict which a unified bourgeoisie relied

When

the

upon Somoza first

to suppress.

serious cracks appeared in this consensus, the earthquake

waslTTe'most visible cause, as Somoza's inroads into the construction industry trampled on traditional BANIC and BANAMERICA concerns. But the roots

^..

.

much

The generalised economic decline of the 1970s reflected economic growth. The fnevitable consequence was more acute capitalist competition, a revision of the rules of the game, and it was a competition which only one group had the power to win. Corruption of state power reached unacceptable levels, so that the Somoza clan was the only bourgeois group which could go on benefiting from the system. That is not to say that BANIC and BANAMERICA were put lay

deeper.

!Re inability of a dictatorial regime to sustain

out of business: they remained extremely rich, but their possibilities of further growth were stifled. Only Somoza's share of the cake increased.

Government

credits increasingly favoured

Somoza

interests

and foreign

non-Somoza sectors. The bourgeoisie found itself in a profound contradiction: their most reliable power base was also cutting back its potential for expansion. Their dilemma was summed up by Comandante Jaime Wheelock of the FSLN, today Nicaragua's Minister of investors, while taxation only affected

Agricultural Development: 'The crisis of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie

summarised

in its inability to resolve the contradictions

is

of aggressive United

economic sphere — since that intervention is in— and at the same time in its ineptitude at releasing the brake on its "free" business development represented by the enormous weight of investments of the Somoza clan, whose presence in political power, although dynastic, is its States intervention in the

dispensable and beneficial in the political and military sphere

safest guarantee

of maintaining the stability of the bourgeois regime.'^

The monopoly of power by one class was turning, inevitably, into monopoly by a single fraction of that class. The disintegration of economic interests in turn produced a break-up oT party political interests. Both the main parties split, ^ and bourgeois groups began to seek alternative political formations such as the Union Democratica de Liberacion (UDEL). The r^ ^^7 fragment a tTon of the bourgeois consensus gave rise to pronounced nationalism among certain groups, making it possible for the Sandinistas j/ later to take extensive bourgeois sectors with them - especially the most *^ defenceless petty bourgeoisie — on a revolutionary path whose basis was nationalist and anti-imperialist. The FSLN knew, as did the more perceptive bourgeois dissidents, that a divided class could never lead the revolution,

much less turn it into a bourgeois democratic one. Their flight from Somocismo accelerated in the three years of state of siege from 1974

to

1977, as peasant massacres and indiscriminate National Guard atrocities

63

/^

J.-

Somocismo and Sandinismo opened many eyes to the brutality of the regime. But many of the bourgeoisie's most vocal leaders made demands which would not have been out of place in the French Revolution, without appearing to realise that the national crisis could only be solved by transforming the entire bourgeois order. If they did realise, the prospect terrified them, for they could see that their strikes and peaceful protests would never unseat Somoza. Xhe force which would overthrow Somocismo - the organised working class and all

—

peasantry

When

potentially threatened the future of the bourgeoisie as a class.

they formulated their demands into the semblance of a political

programme, it was not BANIC or BANAMERICA who led the attack, but groups like the development institute INDE, which represented the sectors worst hit by Somocista corruption and monopoly. Their aims were clear: the restoration of a state which would once again represent the whole of thdr class,

based on the elimination of corruption in the administration, respect and a 'professionalisation' of the National Guar d under

for the Constitution,

non-Somocista commanding officers. One INDE spokesman made a typical after the September 1978 insurrection: 'The problem is the man. He's taking over our market. We have no quarrel with anyone else or the '^* system. Just get rid of him.

comment

Disloyal Competition and Bourgeois Realignment After the 1972 earthquake, the phrase on every businessman's lips wa^ 'competencia desleaV Somoza was attacked not as a capitalist but as a .

dictator; not for exercising

power

against the interests of the Nicaraguan

people, but for refusing to spread a capitalists.

The most

little

of

it

around among other

influential voice of this bourgeois discontent

w as the

COSEP,^^ of which INDE was a member. COSEP was a federation of more than a dozen employers' groups representing almost all middle-class ii;idustrial and commercial interests. It was, and remains, a more effective spearhead of bourgeois interests than any of the private enterprise group

centre or right-wing parties, although originally designed as a pressure group to give

its

Somoza

members_sipme of the economic privileges monopolised

by^ the

clan.^^

In the decade after the 1967 election fraud and massacre, an enormous number of miniature political groupings of the Right and Centre emerged, made up in many cases of small nuclei of business associates with common

economic

For the most part, no real threat to his rule and complacent at the evidence they offered of the fragmentation of bourgeois hostility to his government. The private enterprise lobby held a national conference in March 1974, at which its limitations as a credible political opposition were made painfully clear. Although the conflicts of

Somoza

interests

left

interest with

to

64

them

and

a very restricted constituency.

well alone, aware that they presented

Somoza

required

little

discussion, these contradictions failed

produce any decisive action which the dictatorship would take seriously.

The 1972 Earthquake and After

The old complaints oi competencia desleal and demands for *the removal of corruption and inefficiency from the public administration' were tossed back and forth, but no hard proposals emerged for an opposition strategy. The representatives of the private sector were just not politicians, although several

INDE president Alfonso Robelo - were later turned into by force of circumstance. In a^o^untry where the only political traditions were anjnstitutionalised and discredited two-party system and militant popular resistance, the bourgeoisie lacked both a power base and a poTitical background to guide their actions. Until the final crisis of the Somoza regime, their lack of political experience brought only indecision and -

of them

like

politicians

disunity "

.

Some

private enterprise groups were radicalised

collapse of the system after

1977 and were

by the

final

economic

,

willing to join a concerted battle

Somoza, although not of course against the capitalist system as a whole. But while they added their numbers to the organised popular opposition^^ex did_so faxloo late to assume any kind of dominance within that movem ent! These sectors, who bore the brunt of the effect of the economic crisis on the bourgeoisie, were above all small businessmen and not the repreagainst

sentatives of large-scale finance capital, despite having

some

cases with the big bourgeoisie of

commercial links

in

BANIC and BANAMERICA. They

were small factory- and shop-owners, minor cotton producers of the northwest, entrepreneurs who had achieved some economic status with the postearthquake building boom and now saw the bottom falling out of the con-

—

struction market.

Some form of political

coalition

was the only answer for the bourgeois

opposition, which had for once to take a firm political initiative even at the

of any new organisation's

fragility and contradictory composition. The 1974 from a jumble of political and trade-union groups without a clear political programme. It brought together Conservative and Liberal Party dissidents, the old Independent Liberals of the PLI, the Social Christian Party and the Moscow-line PSN, the last two bringing with them their respective trade-union federations. Any effectiveness which the new UDE L coalition had was due as much as anything to the force of personaHty of its founder and leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, editor oi La Prensa and risk

response

t

a figure

came

in

who commanded

genuine popular appeal

in the

country.

The timing of UDEL's foundation was no accident. In the final days of 1974, the FSLN had carried out a spectacular commando raid on the home of a senior Somocista, and the bourgeoisie as well as Somoza were alarmed by the overwhelming demonstrations of popular support for the successful

commando

unit

made

its

way through crowds

FSLN

as the

lining the road to

Managua's Las Mercedes airport. Bourgeois leaders, constantly looking over their shoulder for Washington's approval, felt an urgent need to convince the UniTed States that there was a viable 'democratic' alternative to both Somoza and the FSLN, which would merit State Department backing. Chamorro and other UDEL leaders,, with their eyes on_ US-endorsed success in the 1981 elections ^aggray^g.dlhj^organisation^sJack of political clarity by

65

\

^

Somocismo and Sandinismo concentrating on a purely electoral strategy at the expense of developing its skeletal programme of government.'"* UDEL frankly admitted that it had no

on what might follow Somoza. Right-wing members more than cosmetic reforms, while the PSN at least converged with the Sandinistas on demands for the nationalisation of all Somoza 's property. Chamorro himself confessed in a 1975 speech to UDEL's youth section that 'UDEL has no design for a new society'. Although Chamorro was attractive to many Liberals in Washington, UDEL's dominant force remained the disenchanted petty bourgeqisie^and it failed to enlist the support of the country's major economic groupiwho, while still to some degree unhappy with Somoza, were prepared to_bide their time in the mistaken hope that the National Guard would wipe out mass discontent by destroying the FSLN. UDEL never came out openly on its own relationship with the Frente, a relationship which was very complex. Many UDEL leaders made little secret of their sympathy for the FSLN, often because wealthy families grew confused between their economic interests and family loyalties to sons and daughters from middle-class Managua suburbs like Los Robles and Altamira who flocked to join the internal consensus

wanted

little

Frente in the late 1970s. Nevertheless, both the right and left wings of afraid of the poHtical stature of the FSLN: afraid of its

UDEL were

own vacillations, and any overt contacts between the two organisations might expose to more direct repression at the hands of the National Guard.

seizure of the poHtical initiative in the face of their afraid that

UDEL

Economic The

stability

Crisis

sought by the big financiers of

BANIC and BANAMERICA and When the FSLN

foreign investors of the Sunbelt corporations could not last.

launched all

its final

offensive against

Somoza

in

1979,

it

had to be sure thai

the necessary revolutionary conditions had been fulfilled, not only the

correct balance of military forces and the readiness of popular organi satio n,

but the culmination of a deep-rooted economic crisis. Most economic analysts have pointed to 5-to-6-year cycles of growth and

Nicaraguan economy: growth from 1950 to 1956 and 1962 from 1956 to 1962 and 1967 to 1972. No single spell of growth was capable of resolving the structural crisis of the economy under Somoza, and the brief respites of 1973-74 (the false post-earthquake boom) and 1976-77 (with the worldwide rise in coffee prices) were only interludes in an irreversible decline. After 1974, the construction boom petered out, and periods of renewed growth could be bought only at the cost of an astronomical foreign debt. Nicaragua's relative weakness in the Central

slump

in the

to 1967, decline

American

Common

Market had already brought

of $24 Government

a regional debt

million by 1967, although the following year the Nicaraguan

proudly placed an advertisement in ihe New York Times proclaiming its $49-minion total external debt as the lowest of any Central American

66

The 1972 Earthquake and After country.

Somoza had

strategic as for strictly

been considered creditworthy as much for economic reasons, but the low level of local invest-

traditionally

ment, among other factors, made it impossible for MCCA-induced industrialisation to be financed except through increased foreign borrowing. The early cycHcal crises of the 19th century, the 1920s, and the 1930s were repeated, with each new slump highlighting the problems of a heavily export -oriented dependent economy. In 1977, exports accounted for 32% of Nicaragua's GDP. Four agricultural products made up 60% of export

Cotton led the way with 24.5%, coffee accounted for 18.1%, sugar 10.2% and meat 7.3%. Until the introducfion of cotton in the 1950s, Nicaragua's economy had rested squarely on coffee, with predictable results during the Great Depression. The difficulties of Sornocismo in the years following the assassination of its founder were due less to a revolutionary upsurge than to the collapse of cotton and coffee prices. Again in 1975, a four -year drought combined with the decreasing value of cotton, sugar and meat exports to produce a slump mitigated only by the buoyancy of coffee prices over the next two years. The cycle of economic crisis became more ^^ rapid. earnings.

By 1979 external debt

servicing

had^rown

to

22% of the

value of

NicaraguarTexports. Investment showed negative growth in 1975 and 1976, ralire"(3 Frieffy "in 1977, and then plunged to - $42.8 million in 1978. In the

GDP

by 5%, and the foreign debt reached $1 billion for the rise over six years. US and multilateral agencies began to ask themselves questions about Somoza's credit rating. The willingness of US AID to prop up the dictatorship for strategic reasons was understandable, but the eagerness of the private banks to leap into the crisis with lifelines for the crippled dictator was harder to grasp. Once the Interamerican Development Bank and the World Bank began to question soft loans to Somoza, he had no alternative but to turn to assistance on harsher terms, appealing to 133 US private banks. '^ Domestic measures to ease the balance of payments crisis only weakened Somoza's political situation. In 1978 his congress introduced a bill to end tax exemption on industrial profits. The move gave the government an extra $17 million in revenue but antagonised yet another sector of the bourgeoisie. All-out war against the FSLN doubled military expenditure, which could only be financed by printing money: 60% more than planned in 1978 alone. Taxes on consumer goods and cuts in real wages brought militant opposition from the working class, and the punitive terms of private bank loans ate away most of the cash raised through taxation. The $41 million in private loans raised after the September 1978 insurrection came on punitive terms - repayment in two years and 8.75% same year, first

fell

time, a fourfold

interest.

From the Banco Central, Bank President Roberto Incer asserted that the government would reject further approaches to the International Monetary Fund, after the Fund had rebuffed a credit request at the end of 1978. Incer denounced the IMF's Apolitical bias' against Nicaragua, but by March 1979 it was hard to see where else the lifeline would come from. The result - a 67

Somocismo and Sandinismo $66 million loan granted on 15 May - was accompanied by the customary IMF medicine of austerity. ^^ The enforced devaluation of the cordobM.put the seal on the bankruptcy of Somocismo. This time the economic crisis could not be held back by means of pacts with the opposition. Instead, Somoza made wild populist promises: exports would expand, renewed foreign investment would bring jobs to thousands, prices would be controlled. But the Nicaraguan people knew that price controls would not work uriTess^ they were monitored by popular committees (a valuable lesson), and they saw that their newly decreed wage rises lagged far behind the 60% inflation rate. Nor was there any escape from the crisis within the bourgeoisie. The world capitalist recession added its own dimension of chaos to the inherently weak Nicaraguan economy, hitting small and medium-sized enterprises hardest. Hundreds of them were driven into bankruptcy by the devaluation. Class polarisation and the fragmentation of bourgeois unity were now irreversible.

The Working Qass: Engine of the Revolution FSLN Comandante

Jaime Wheelock reminded journalists 1980 of businessman Alfonso Robelo from the Junta of National Reconstruction, 'revolves around the two great forces of this country: the workers of the town and the workers of the countryside.' Today, Robelo and others like him are outraged by the FSLN's insistence on 'National unity,'

after the resignation in April

equating el pueblo, the people, with the masses

and oppression under Somocismo. But

who

suffered abject poverty

a simple glance at statistics indicates

all its gravity, was the crisis Somoza's Nicaragua brought 80% of the populatioju per capita income of less than $805 a year. For two-thirds of these^ut was a >^ mere $286.^^ One of the extraordinary features of the Nicaraguan RevoIutionisJiiat It took place with one of the smallest and traditionally worst-organised urban proletariats in the Latin American continent. The fragmentation of tb^ working-class movement, and the consequently economistic natura of4ts demands, born of misery, disorganisation and crises of leadership, were foj decades a powerful weapon for Somoza. The Nicaraguan working class was first created when peasant farmers, violently deprived of their means of subsistence, were left with no option but to sell their labour. In time the expansion of cotton planting brought explosive growth to the population centres of the Pacific Coast, and industrialisation and urbanisation in the 1960s increased the size of the urban working class, brought mass unemployment, and extended the proletarianisation of the rural poor. At the height of industrial growth, from 1963 to 1973, 15,000 agricultural jobs were lost but only 13,000 new ones appeared in the modern, capitalintensive factories. The original growth of the proletariat, then, was not linked to manufacturing industry but to plantation labour and the mechanisa-

that the fragmentation of the bourgeoisie, for

of

68

a tiny elite.

\

The 1972 Earthquake and After tion of agriculture.

At

first

the people

found work

in the

coffee /mc^s,' later in the sugar refineries, cotton gins,

oil

banana

fields

and

processing plants.

The miners of the north, although combative in the time of Sandino, were for the most part Miskito Indians from the jungles of the interior, and they remained both culturally and geographically remote from the development of the proletariat as a whole. Nicaragua is a country of great geographical distortions.

Its

working

class

western departamentos of Managua, Leon, Chinandega and Carazo. The capital alone is the home of a quarter of the population, containing 857o of Nicaragua's industry, 90% of government and 60% of is

centred

in the

commercial activity. From 1960 onwards there has been a steady rise in urban population, from only 41% to its current 52%. In 1979, 343,000 people were employed in agriculture, 90,000 in industry and construction, and 228,000 in commerce and services.*^ 231,000 or 28% of the economically active population were unemployed. In a capital city of 600,000, the industrial working class is disproportionately small. The main reasons for rapid urban growth lay elsewhere, in the expropriation of farmlands, the expulsion of peasants from the countryside, and the migration of thousands to the cities. The industrial expansion of the '60s quite simply failed to keep pace with the growth of the urban population. This dynamic was also largely due to the explosion of service industries, commerce and a wide, desperate range of marginal activities. in any Central American country, which dates back to the earliest 19th-century expulsions of indigenous communities by Liberal and Conservative landowners. Latifundismo produced a perpetual crisis of domestic food production and an army of dispossessed peasants who found work, if they found it at all, in the harvesting and processing of Nicaragua's main export crops, cotton, coffee and sugar. Official figures of the economically active population are deceptively low. They do not take into account the thousands of spouses and children who added their labour to that of the family's main wage earner in a desperate attempt to ward off starvation. In coffee picking alone, 40% of workers were women and perhaps another 15% young children. It was

Behind

is

this pattern

of urban growth, as

the crucial struggle for land,

invariably piece-work, forcing labourers into 12- or 14-hour days in the

scorching sun, beginning at 5.30 a.m., six days a week. Those lucky enough to find semi-skilled jobs processing the crop

would commonly work up to

18 hours. Their pitiful wages went on basic foodstuffs sold at inflated prices

landowner's store, the comisariato so that cotton pickers or cane would often return home at the end of the season locked into an endcycle of debt to their employer. Outside the season, there was nothing. In

in the

,

cutters less

1973, cotton employed only 25,035 permanent workers but 202,295 labourers for the three-month picking season. At night, they slept in galerones, each serving as a dormitory for up to 150 workers, sordid huts

of unfinished planking in which each labourer occupied a coffin-like wooden box, two metres long by one metre high, without light, water, furniture or sanitation.

69

Somocismo and Sandinismo Seasonal agricultural labour like this and the constant migration from

home

to place of

work made

and

For up against the brutalities of Nicaraguan capitalism, with a brief opportunity to organise and share experiences. For the other nine, they dispersed once more to their homes to scratch out a living through subsistence farming. The few who found yearround work in cotton gins or sugar refineries worked in isolated locations, easily divided and repressed. Their revolutionary potential as a class came not from their tradition of organisation, but from the objective facts of their three

months of

class organisation

solidarity difficult.

the year, the rural poor were thrown

misery. In the cities too, the slow consolidation of the proletariat as a unified class

had a great deal to do with built-in high levels of unemployment and underemployment. There was a clear and damaging division between the active and the reserve proletariat, a vast unproductive army whose existence kept wage levels low and class consciousness undeveloped. For the unemployed, any work could mean survival. In the sprawling urban slums of Acahualinca by the lakeside, hundreds of women gathered each morning around the sewage outlets from the Managua slaughterhouse. Breaking holes in the concrete pipes, they waited to fish out rotting offal which might be sold in the market for a few centavos to be made into sausages. Their children, whom the Sandinistas call los Quinchos (after Quincho Barrilete, child hero of a revolutionary song), swarmed in the streets of Managua to sell newspapers or chewing-gum, to mind cars or clean shoes. Their husbands rarely worked. Their families lived in shacks of cardboard, tin and car tyres with earth latrines and stand-pipes half a mile apart. They are the urban marginados of Nicaragua.

Organising the Labour

The

first stirrings

Movement

of working-class organisation came

at the turn

century with the founding of small mutual aid societies. The

of the

first socialist

unions followed in 1920 when workers in Leon founded the Federacion de Trabajadores Liberada (Free Federation of Workers) and celebrated May Day for the first time in Nicaragua. But after the miners' and agricultural workers' strikes against American rule, the murder of Sandino and the outlawia&x)f •^>^the Socialist Party neutralised the labour movement for two decades. Governrhent-controlled unions held sway during the late 1940s and early 1950s.^^

Trade -union membership increased only in 1958, when electricians, building workers and stevedores swelled the number of unions to eighteen. But even with this jump, only 16,000 Nicaraguan workers were unionised, just 3.4% of the economically active population. Unionisation had reached less than 1% of rural workers. ^^ The formation of these new unions coincided with a wave of strikes by teachers, railway workers, miners, hospital workers, and shoemakers, who demanded full implementation of the 1944 Labour Code and an extension of social security benefits, but the strikes lacked clear political direction.

70

The 1972 Earthquake and After

The

issue

of working-class leadership was posed more starkly by

contrasting~strikes in the 1970s. After the earthquake, construction workers

became

a

key

1973 the booming construction industry employment conditions, high wage rates and the

political group. In

offered favourable

opportunity for workers to organise coherently. In the same year, building workers who were grouped together in the Confederacion General de Trabajadores - Independiente (CGT-I), loyal to the Socialist Party, went on strike, but their negotiators settled after four weeks for a \Qf7o wage hike and defused union activism. The strike was a valuable exercise in mobilisation, but failed to transcend economistic demands, and when the construction boom collapsed the following year, building workers lost much of their

momentum.

A

strike involving very different

workers

in the

same period took place

country's largest sugar refinery, the Ingenio San Antonio, where 5,000 came out, most of them paileros (cane cutters). In a series of stages, the San Antonio workers learned at first hand the whole gamut of strike-breaking at the

tactics that could be brought against them. Their first unions were dismantled by the Conservative Pellas family, owners of the refinery, by means of the expulsion and victimisation of union activists. Next the National Guard was deployed against the strikers, and finally the management attempted to buy off unrest by granting minor wage concessions. The paileros remained unimpressed. In their own struggle, the land invasions of peasants nearby in Subtiava and Chinandega, and the formation of the first Rural Workers' Committees (Comites de Trabajadores del Campo: CTCs), where the germ of a

worker-peasant alliance.

Now,

i;

1975 and 1976, the question of the leadership of the working class was being resolved in favour of the FSLN. Earlier it had been in doubt. Any serious claim to leadership by the old Conservative opposition had begun to crumble after the death of Somoza Garcia. The economic crisis of the late 1950s, and the still-fresh memory of the latest Liberal-Conservative pacts, had begun to open the eyes of many in the small workers' movement to the true nature of the Conservative option. The PSN,/fli/re de mieux, established control of important urban groups, but its inability to provide revolutionary in

leadership recalled

its

origins. This suggests

conciliatory line of Latin

formation

in

not only the prevailing

American communist

parties at the time of

its

1944, but also the specific class structure of wartime Nicaragua.

With an agriculturally based economy and industrialisation blocked by American development strategy, the human material available to the Socialist Party was not an urban proletariat but an artisan class which was later swallowed up as manufacturing industry took root.^^ The first Socialist Party leaders were artisans too, and their ideological level was low. The FSLN's founder, Carlos Fonseca Amador, analysed the early mistakes of the PSN: 'It is necessary to explain their grave errors not simply as a product of the leadership's bad faith .; they did not remain sufficiently composed .

.

of Conservative hegemony over the anti-Somoza movement; they were unable to distinguish between the correctness of opposing Somoza in the face

71

Somocjsmo and Sandinismo and the manoeuvres of the Conservatives.'^^ These early difficulties which the PSN experienced, and the ease with which Somoza took it apart three years after its foundation, offer another reason for the historic weakness of Nicaraguan working-class organisation. PSN Secretary -General Luis Sanchez reflected on his party's history in a 1977 interview: 'Somoza managed to dismantle its incipient organisational structure, sweeping away trade-union cells and jailing or exiling leading cadres. Nicaraguan Communists were unable to resist these attacks and went into hiding, so that in fact the

After the Cuban Revolution

it

PSN

ceased to function for several years. looked everywhere for alliances with the

'^"^

bourgeoisie, but without success. According to Sanchez, *the reason was that

anti-Communist prejudices were still very pronounced among sectors of the opposition bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.'^^ As the influence of the FSLN grew in the 1960s, the PSN found itself bitterly divided over its relationship to the

a head in 1967, and

most of the

armed

struggle

.

The

crisis

reached

were expelled over their intransigent opposition to any cooperation with the growing guerrilla movement. Three years later, those expelled set themselves up as the Partido Comunista de Nicaragua (PC de N) still vociferously anti-Sandinista and still claiming unconditional allegiance to Moscow, though in practice disowned by the USSR which continued to relate to the PSN.^^ The PSN continued to have its doubts about the FSLN, and to criticise actions which they saw as extremist or adventurist: 'they tried traditional /o^w/smo, at other times putschism, suffering Maoist, almost Trotskyist influences. '^^ It came as

no

surprise, then,

when

original leadership

the Socialist Party joined the bourgeois-led

coalition in 1974, although in fairness the presence of the

PSN and

UDEL its

many of UDEL's most proAs the crisis of Somocismo mounted, rapprochement with the Sandinistas, and in

labour federation, the CGT-I, accounted for gressive

the ' >

demands

PSN began

1^977,

for labour reform.

to look for a

when major

sectors of the

FSLN

pointed to the

critical

weakness of

< the bourgeoisie as grounds for a rapid insurrectional strategy, active steps

were taken to heal the rift. It was no easy matter for the FSLN to unite the trade union movement and present a solid working-class front. The Socialist CGT-I was only one of four labour centrales in Nicaragua. Of the others, the CUS was Nicaragua's docile ICFTU-ORIT affiliate the CTN was loyal to the small Social Christian Party, and the CAUS to the sectarian Partido Comunista. As well as the established centrales, new workplace organisations sprang up as the crisis of Somocismo approached. Among these, the FSLN attached special importance to what they saw as incipient factory councils, the Comites de Lucha de los Trabajadores (Workers' Fighting Committees: CLTs) which cut across party affiliations. An urgent need arose for the FSLN to discuss and reassess its strategy, to look for ways of channelling the revolutionary energy of the urban proletariat, perhaps even to set up a new party of the proletariat, in the face of the growing economic importance of the urban working class in the 1970s at the expense of the peasantry, which latter class had ,

72

The 1972 Earthquake and After historic base of support in the northern mountains.

given Sandinismo

its

debate within the

FSLN was

bitter but indispensable. In the three years

The from

1975 to 1978, a traditionally weak and divided working-class movement, newly dynamised by economic collapse, repression and the visible decomposition of the dictatorship, had to be transformed into the second pillar of the Nicaraguan Revolution. The transformation had to be achieved by a revolutionary vanguard with a clear and intimate understanding of Nicaraguan history. That vanguard

is

kCLX, Latin America and Empire Report Vol. X, Ho. 1976, p. 22.

\^

2,

February

2. Ihid. 3.

D oris

4.

Banco Central de

l'\]tnno, In side the Nicaraguan Revolution, pp. 128-9. NicsiTSigusi, Informe A nual, 1973-1978 editions. 5. V^heelock, Imperialismo y Dictadura, pp. \1 4-5. 7.

N ACL A, op. cit., p. 23. Wheelock, op. cit., Chapter 6 passim.

8.

Ibid., p. 189.

9.

In addition to the existing PLI, Liberal dissidents

6.

formed the Movimiento (MLC). The Conservatives divided into four The congressional opposition was known as the Partido

Liberal Constitucionalista factions.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Conservador Oficialista. Dissident groups were the Partido Conservador Autentico (PCA); the Partido Conservador Aguerista, loyal to Fernando Aguero; and the Accion Nacional Conservadora (ANC). The last three came together in 1979 to form the Partido Conservador Democrata (PCD). See Lopez et ai, La caida del Somocismo, pp. 354-5. See documents of UDEL, 1974-7, especially El Programa de UDEL (1974) and Pronunciamiento (24 August 1977). Latin America Economic Report, Vol. Vl, No. 39,6 October 1978. COSEP: Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada, formerly known as COSIP: Consejo Superior de la Iniciativa Privada. See Lopez et ai, op. cit., pp. 89-90 and 298-9. Also Wheelock, op. cit., p. 183.

14.

15. 16.

See interview with Pedro Joaquin Chamorro in El Dia, 24 November 1977. Lopez et al., op. cit., pp. 274-5. 'Desangre de la Economia,' in Nicaragua en Lucha, COSOCAN (Barcelona)., No. 1 July-August 1979, p. 15. International Herald Tribune, 22 May 1979. Figures for 1977. Source: United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), 1979 report on Nicaragua. Datos Basicos sobre Nicaragua (Managua, SENAPEP, Coleccion Juan de DiosMunoz, 1979), p. 10. See also James Dunkerley and Chris Whitehouse, Unity is Strength: Trade Unions in Latin America, a Case for Solidarity (London, Latin ,

17. 18.

19.

20.

A \j

/

the subject of the following chapter.

Notes 1.

\

73

Somocismo and Sandinismo America Bureau, 1980), pp. 1 12-13. Torres, Interpretacion del Desarrollo Social Centroamericano, p. 305. 22. Estructura Agraria, Dinamica de Poblacion y Desarrollo Capitalista en 2

1

.

Centroamerica {San Jose,CSUCA, 1978), pp. 236-41. AmsidoT Nicaragua-Hora Cero, 24. Interview in El Dia, 26th November 1977. 23. Carlos Fonseca

,

25. Ibid. 26. Intercontinental Press,

New

York, 7 July 1980,

27. Sanchez interview, /oc. cif. 28. See Chapter 13 for fuller details

Nicaragua.

74

p.

710.

on the trade-union movement

in

PART

2

Overthrowing the Dictatorship 6.

Guerrilla

War -

People's

War is a people 's war, and it is a mass struggle. To attempt to kind of war without the support of the populace is a prelude to * inevitable disaster. The guerrilla force is the people "s fighting vanguard. (Che Guevara)*

'A guerrilla

conduct

war

this

Reviving the Broken Thread

map out a strategy from A to Z. You must have enough change course, to accommodate the line of action to changing historical circumstances, without ever losing sight of the strategic objective. That is the great lesson of the FSLN. (Comandante Henry Ruiz, 'Modesto')^ 'You can never

flexibility to

'

In July 1961

,

three

men

gathered in Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras.

They were Carlos Fonseca Amador, Tomas Borge and Silvio Mayorga, all former university students. The question before them was the foundation of a revolutionary movement, a national liberation front. The spectacular assassination of Anastasio Somoza Garcia in 1956 and the slump in cotton prices had given the stimulus for the greatest political mobilisations since the 1930s. With the cotton slump came increased rural unemployment. Simultaneously, capitalist expansion in the countryside expelled more peasants from desirable lands, and their migratory influence was felt in the cities. The generalised protests which took place throughout the country were specific demands as yet unlinked to a firm political programme, protests against the increased cost of living, poor housing conditions and the lack of public services. Th^y marked a clear upsurge in class consciousness but without a J^^ clear revolutionary leadership. For more than two decades, popular discontent had gravitated towards the Conservative Party, not because it offered a particularly attractive alternative to Somocismo, but because no other option was available. In their way, too, the Conservatives responded to the crisis of the late 1950s, mounting the Olama y los Mollejones invasion in 1959 and the seizures of the Diriamba and Jinotepe barracks a year later. But the operations lacked popular support and strategic vision,^ and while they proved that the bourgeoisie was still willing to take up arms against

75

Overthrowing the Dictatorship

Somoza, their failure also wrecked the myth of cuartelazo politics, the attempted seizure of power from above through intrigues and isolated military adventures. From now on, opposition had to be built from the bottom, not imposed from the top. Between 1 958 and 960, there were more than 60 armed actions against the Many were old-style military adventures, but others sought a new way From his earliest student days, Carlos Fonseca had insisted that this way was to recover the tradition of Sandino. Survivors of an older generation shared Fonseca 's conviction, and in 1958 twenty-two men crossed into Nicaragua under cover of darkness from the Honduran border town of Danli, under the command of General Ramon Raudales. Raudales and four other members of the guerrilla unit were veterans of Sandino's war. The other seventeen were for the most part university students. Their weapons were relics from the 1930s. Gathering support from local peasants, Raudales's group went into combat with the National Guard, and although Somoza 's detachment was badly mauled the guerrillas lost their leader, the old general. The young students began voraciously to read Sandino's own writings and every available biography and memoir. In the middle of their political preparation came the triumph of Fidel Castro's revolution against Batista in Cuba. 'For us', wrote Tomas Borge, 'Fidel was the resurrection of Sandino the justification of our dreams.'^ Within months, the 'Rigoberto Lopez Perez' guerrilla column, named after Somoza's assassin, had been formed with strong moral support from Che Guevara. But the column was ambushed by the National Guard in the northern mountains of El Chaparral. Several Nicaraguans and Cubans died, and Fonseca himself was seriously wounded. Nonetheless, El Chaparral showed the way forward, and in other guerrilla actions of the period names like Manuel Diaz y Sotelo, Chale Haslam and Francisco Buitrago were added to the list of early revolutionary martyrs. The Cuban experience was by now the subject of intense debate within the future nucleus of the FSLN. Although there were few ideological lessons to_ /be drawn from the Cuban Revolution as it stood in 1959, it reconfirmed to / Fonseca, Borge, Mayorga and others the essential teachings which they had / already taken from Sandino: the central importance of the armed struggle \ in the mountains and the need to build sympathetic support among the \ local peasant population. Over and above this, the example of Sandino \ provided a national thread which embodied every feature of Nicaragua's 1

dictatorship. .

.

.

.

20th-century history — intervention, the striving for independence, the bankruptcy of two-party oligarchical rule, the class basis of resistance. When Fonseca, Borge and Mayorga emerged from their Tegucigalpa meeting, a new revolutionary movement had been born, and on Fonseca's insistence it would be known not as the Frente de Liberacion Nacional, but the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN). Internally, the new current of revolutionary Sandinismo remained weak, and its first military actions were launched from neighbouring Honduras, caused by — and of course aggravating - the lack of real contact between the small vanguard group and the masses whose demands it sought to project.

76

War - People

Guerrilla

's

The point was not lost on the Moscow-line Socialists, who were swift to criticise what they considered the 'adventurism' of the actions of 1963. 'From 1959 to 1962', noted Fonseca, 'we still maintained the illusion that was possible to bring about change through the peaceful means proposed by the PSN leadership.'^ But as the guerrilla force consolidated, its leaders had harsher words for the PSN's own efforts. 'The traditional parties of the left gave the struggle a strictly defensive dimension

centred on immediate demands. taneously revolutionary given leadership towards

—

Our working

.

.

role as the

it

economistic,

class in general

neither here nor anywhere else

its

.

War

—

is

not spon-

but must be

vanguard of the revolutionary

process.'^ In

1963, the

FSLN

gathered together 60 combatants on the banks of

still not on Nicaraguan soil. The group this time included both Fonseca and the Sandinista veteran Santos Lopez, so uniting

the Rio Patuca in Honduras,

two generations of revolutionary fighters under the single banner of Sandinismo. The group faced the prospect of military defeat, but this was Borge's words 'only the loss of an arm. The FSLN did not disappear.'^

in

movement had never seen military action as an end in itself, but as the expression of a political struggle. The first workers' and students' cells had sprung up at the end of the previous decade in the cities of Managua and Leon, while rural workers were organising for the first time in the sugar and cotton mills of Chinandega and among the coffeepickers and seasonal labourers of Matagalpa, Esteli, Somoto and Ocotal, the very areas controlled by Sandino's army in the 1930s. In the universities, small groups of Marxist students began to put working-class demands into a political framework, and many of these student militants and theorists went on to form part of the FSLN. After his visit to Moscow in 1957 to attend the Vlth Congress of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and his subsequent imprisonment and torture, Fonseca used written propaganda^ and public meetings to present the case for revolutionary politics and to show the relevance of Sandino's thinking to contemporary conditions in Nicaragua. For the first time in a quarter of a century the name of Sandino began to circulate clandestinely among the people. Although a strong mass movement remained a distant project, Fonseca linked his intellectual arguments through the magazine Nueva Nicaragua with direct political action and was instrumental in organising popular committees in Leon, giving immediate local barrio demands a more clearly political dimension. The ideological silence stifling Nicaragua was broken. The young FSLN went out in search of support among the working class ,/ from^ the start cohcefff farting It's eTforts not on the unemployed or the -f" aftisan class but on workers tied to important productive centres. In a token of the same internationalism which had sustained Sandino, the Mexican Victor Tirado Lopez was placed in charge of this work, seeking out not only urban factory workers but the rural proletariat of the west and workers' nuclei in the northern towns of Esteli, El Viejo and Wiwili. The problem of financing the new organisation was a grave one. Foreign solidarity with the This was because the nascent

,

77

Overthj^owing the Dictatorship

FSLN was

non-existent, and the organisation had to rely on

A

its

own

resources

by the student Jorge Navarro carried out the Frente's first bank raid, recovering 35,000 cordobas ($5,000) which were despatched to the mountains, but bank raids were dangerous and costly. A single death in such a raid could break down an entire urban support network at a time when the FSLN's urban presence was still fragile. Contributions from sympathetic factory workers and students — 5 cordobas here, 10 there — brought barely enough to feed the guerrilla force, let alone buy arms, ammunition or transport, and Victor Tirado's group was rumoured to have lived in the mountains for nine months with only 5 cordobas in their inside the country.

unit led

pockets.^

FSLN were appalling. The guerrilla force estabon the Rio Coco on the Honduras-Nicaragua border. There was nothing to eat, not even animals to hunt. There was no salt. It wasn't just hunger that was terrible, but constant cold 24 hours a day, because we spent all our time in the river. We were always wet through with the clinging Conditions of life for the

lished its base

rain of that part of the country, the cold a kind of unrelieved torture, mosquitos, wild jungle animals and insects. No shelter, no change of clothes,

food.'^^ So the FSLN relied on support from the local peasants, keeping morale high with the help of Sandinista veterans like Santos Lopez who had been through the torture of the mountains before.

no

Choosing the Terrain The inhabitants of Nicaragua's north-eastern border with Honduras are for the most part Miskito Indians. Almost all are illiterate, few can speak Spanish. In 1963, even fewer could have named the president of the country. To the Miskitos, the difference between the FSLN and Somoza's Guard was hazy. Both wore olive green uniforms and carried guns; neither could communicate with the sparse local population.

When

the incipient guerrilla /oco

clashed in 1963 with the National Guard at Bocay and Rio Coco, there

seemed

little

on paper to distinguish

it

from

military encounters brought heavy loss of at the height

earlier

life

armed

The and coming

invasions.

to the Sandinistas,

of Alliance for Progress reformism they succeeded

in calling

forth only a limited political response. But in one essential the guerrilla

detachment offered something new, and

^ FSLN \ \

^

its

importance was recalled by the

movements of Rio Coco and Bocay

were our armed response at that time. It should be emphasised that the 1963 guerrilla represents the emergence of the first armed organisation with consistent ideological character and the proposal of a revolutionary programme for the construction of a socialist society.'*^ After these defeats, the Frente went into a prolonged withdrawal from armed action, having neither the arms, the numbers nor the organisation Jo confront the National Guard again. The main political thrust now was to build unbreakable links with the people, an urban network capable of

(a

y^

eleven years later: 'The guerrilla

78

'

Guerrilla

financing the organisation and projecting

\^^Hng

its

demands

War - People 's War

in the heart

classTand a'rural support system which would sustain

of the

FSLN

guerrilla

units.

The choice of terrain for the armed struggle was effectively dictated by a mixture of geography, class structure and history. The need to operate in clandestinity, the central economic importance of the peasantry, and the legacy of Sandino's war of liberation all pointed to the mountains of the especially to the departamento of Matagalpa\ Matagalpa was one of the rhore heavily populated regions of a sparsely settled country. Its population in 1961 was about 160,000, and its landscape offered the FSLN clandestinity without isolation from the people. The mountains of Matagalpa are thickly forested and merge into the impenetrable jungles of Eastern Jinotega, Boaco and Zelaya. It is broken and difficult terrain, with a rainy season which lasts for nine or ten months of the year. Among the peasants, for all their poverty and marginalisation from national politics, there was widespread hostility to Somoza and a lingering loyalty to Sandino. Many older people had fought or collaborated with Sandino's army, and stories of the 1926-33 war continued to circulate in the northern villages. Some of its survivors had fought on alone for three decades in the jungle, unconnected to any political movement but carrying on their own private struggle against the National GuardjFrom 1967 onwards, the Guard found

noHh and

•.

itself facing a

landscape ideally suiteTto guerrilla struggle but impossible

for conventional warfare, with a local {population

with the muchachos (kids) of the

who

'

increasingly identified

FSLN^

However, winning this sympathy was no easy matter. Hardship and isolation had made the Nicaraguan peasant withdrawn and uncommunicative, reluctant to trust strangers. Old sympathies for Sandino did not prevent a percentage of peasants from being convinced Somocistas, while many others were at least superficially under the sway of the dictatorship's ideological control. For the FSLN, the key was to distinguish between the two and avoid the constant risk of exposure and betrayal. Family relationships are the backbone of Nicaraguan peasant communities, and acceptance meant not only shared political convictions but the integration of guerrilla fighters into family life until they were accepted as virtual blood relatives.'^ After the mid-1960s, no recruit entered the FSLN without a commitment to live as the campesinos did, sharing all their privations and so gaining their confidence. For most of the guerrilleros urban middle-class youth, it meant abandoning the class of their birth, with no turning back. Support from the campesinos came in a slow chain-reaction. In each new village or hamlet, a single slowly built friendship brought the sympathy of an entire family; every political contact brought three or four more. Gradually, the network of support swelled, an infinitely patient and arduous process guided by every combatant's belief in ultimate victory. The guerrillas came and went, getting to know the lie of the land, establishing arms caches, teaching the peasants a political understanding of their situation. Recruitment of peasants became easier. Many of the peasants captured by the National Guard admitted to ,

79

^

^

Overthrowing the Dictatorship

^»

^9^

^ v w

cooperating with the Frente because the guerrillas had taught them to sow their crops better, taught them to read and write, given them medicine or clothing.^"'

And

sympathy

for the

National Guard repression in turn only increased peasant

muchachos.

was equally difficult, and 1963 the Frente turned to two years of^mi-

In the cities, the task of building an urban base after the military reverses of

work among the urban masses, but with little success in building the movement. This work was directed mainly at the working-class Z)^mo5 oT^ Managua and other major cities, and the FSLN later admitted that ts entire conception of mass organisational work had been mistaken,^"* In an illlegal

i

starred political alliance called Movilizacion Republicana, the Sandinistas

worked together with the Socialist Party, but in a context where they had no hope of establishing leadership within the coalition. Key mOitants came down from the mountains, and their dispersion in the cities left little room for continuous political organising among the peasants of the north. peasants too were sent

Frente 's urban

cells;

down

to

Managua

Some

for political instruction in the

others were sent in delegations to departmental capitals

and land seizures; a few scattered peasant assemblies were held in northern villages, and in isolated cases small farmers physically resisted attempts by capitalists to evict them from their to protest against working conditions

lands.

But both urban and

rural

work proceeded with

little

rhythm or co-

ordination for four painful years. The concentration on clarifying a poiidcal

programme the ,

lack of

money and

militants in the mountains

-

all

itself as a real political force to the

you believed

arms, the slow work of a handful of

this

in its political line,'

made

it

difficult for the

FSLN

to project

masses. 'You joined the Frente because

remembered Omar Cabezas,

later to

become

gueniWsLCommandante. 'You believed that the Frente was capable of overthrowing Somoza and the Guardia ... we went up into the mountains with the idea that this was where the power lay, that myth of the companeros in the mountain, mystery, the unknown, "Modesto"^^ arms, the best men, indestructible power. And when you get to the mountains, you find that there's "Modesto" and fifteen others split up into small groups. You almost reach the point of saying, My God, I've made the worst decision of my life. You feel as if you've set off on something which has no future ... In the whole of Leon, the Frente consisted of Leonel [Rugama] J.l [Juan Jose Quezadal and Edgardo Munguia, then me. That was the FSLN in Leon.'^^ As 1967 opened, the organisation was alive, but it was a small and frail a

.

.

.

,

thread. 4"-^-^ iA^ ^'

I Pancasan 1967:

/

^ A

The Peasants Take Up Arms^

that year began, the 22 January massacre of demonstrators cha nged the context of political opposition overnight. The tranquil elections which

As

followed led

Somoza

to believe that he had successfully neutralised opposi-

tion to his regime, but popular hatred of the dictatorship

80

was

at its height

Guerrilla

War - People

's

War

and the discredited manoeuvres of the Conservatives left an acute vacuum which the FSLN moved swiftly to fill. It was time, the leadership decided^ to resume the armed offensive. Accordingly, t!ieR;ente made careful preparations to consolidate the guerrilla in the area around the mountain of Fancasan, thirty miles or so east of Matagalpa. To support it, they launched a'new wave o^ bank raids, and gathered considerable assistance from local peasants.^hey took on the job of wiping out our tracks where the column had passed; the companeras hung out coloured cloths to warn us of any danger; they invented signals for us with different sounds ... We had a whole team of campesino brothers and sisters who knew the area like the back of their hand.''^ The money which came in from bank raids served to stock food, clothing and medical caches in the forest, to break the absolute dependence of the rural guerrilla on its urban support network. Around Pancasan, the Frente's peasant sympathisers were organised into cells, each with different responsibilities: to act as informers of National Guard movements, as mountain guides, cooks, suppliers of food and accommodation, purchasers of equipment. Many began to fight in smallscale harassment operations against the Guard, returning their weapons afterwards and going back to their farms. There were still problems in the integration of peasant recruits into the regular guerrilla columns, and although the Sandinistas received active support from the local population, peasant combatants tended to become demoralised easily by rumours of enemy troop movements (the National Guard by now was mounting sophis/) fj ticated counter-insurgency operations), and by the physical hardship of c forced marches at night, food shortages and obsessive security precautions. f^(\i^V^^ Many peasants deserted or had to be dismissed, and a number even turned informers. The urban orjtuderrt cadre by contrast had greater staying power, having made"'the~decision to move into the mountains with all that that entailed, and usually having a clearer political understanding of the need for tRe" armed struggle. Nonetheless, the preparation of the Pancasan guerrilla marked a vital step forv/ard. 'It was no longer the habitual preparation of an armed moyement from a neighbouring country, far from the main enemy's sight, but an armed v/rmovement rooted in the mountains in the very heart of our country.''^ In addition to the numerous peasants who were now fighting, the FSLN had b"rought its entire leadership into the Pancasan area, a huge but unavoida'bleTTsk if the new guerrilla was to be successful. But at the end of August r967, Somoza^'s troops located the Pancasan columns and forced them into combat. With limited firepower, the outcome for the FSLN was inevitable. Thirteen senior members of the organisation died, including Silvio Mayorga, of its founder members; a severe military blow and the loss of years of accumulated political experience. '

^

Somoza

too, however, was forced to admit that his troops had suffered

serious casualties.

Guard

units were drafted into the

mountains on

a

systematic and unprecedented campaign against peasant sympathisers, and the

government newspaper Novedades screamed from

its

headlines for the

81

Overtl}r owing the Dictatorship

guerrilla

movement

to be exterminated.

The

earlier forays against the

National Guard at Bocay and Rio Coco had passed almost unnoticed

among

was different. Workers and students staged solidarity actions with Pancasan, and the name of the FSLN took on a new political authority in Nicaragua. Word spread of National Guard brutality in the countryside, and the legitimacy of the armed struggle was reaffirmed at the very time when the bourgeois opposition found itself in disarray. The FSLN may not yet have signified a real or immediate alternative to the dictatorship or to the 'formal' opposition, but August 1967 proved that, unlike guerrilla movements annihilated throughout Latin America in the disastrous years offoquismo, the Frente was very much alive. The surviving leadership of the organisation sought to give immedijLJe the population at large, but this

political continuity to the military action, in order to reinforce the point

that Pancasan

was merely the miHtary expression of

a

coherent mass struggle.

Rejecting the failed option of political alliances with the Socialist Party and

other groups on the Left, which were merely a barrier to effective communication with the masses, the links with the people.

connected to the

FSLN

instead set about strengthening

The method was

FSLN

its

direct

to create 'intermediate organisations'

but not bearing

its

name. In the

universities, the

Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario (Revolutionary Student Front:

FER)

major force after Pancasan. And in the working-class barrios, the Frente encouraged the formation of the Comites Civicos Populares. The FSLN now had a visible presence among the masses, and organisations which could identify with the Sandinista political programme. Clandestine FSLN documents began to circulate widely, denouncing Conservative electoralism and National Guard repression of peasants. Years of intensive mass organisational work still lay ahead, but the importance of Pancasan as a turning point in the development of the Nicaraguan Revolution remains incalculable.

became

a

Accumulation of Forces remembered Tomas Borge, 'we began the silent accumula'^^ which gradually formed an organic structure in the barrios. An urban base was a critical necessity for the Frente, and although small Marxist cells in Managua and Leon dated back to the late 1950s, the FSLN 's L Jly urban actions had been designed mainly as a means of economic support for the"rural,gwem//a. The 1967 bank raids, coming injhe midst of electoral iaV^ ^^ scandal and a blanket of repression, had a certain impact among the urban^ t\\tr* working class, but they were no substitute for coherent organisational work in the factories and barrios. The late '60s also saw a reassessment of the need w for guerrilla movements throughout the continent to establish themselves in the cities, with the failure of Che Guevara's rural /oco at Nancahuazu in Bolivia and the emergence of urban-based movements like Carlos Marighela's ^ in Brazil and the MLN (or Tupamaros) in Uruguay. As usual in reassessing I'^^' its tactics and strategy, the FSLN looked for lessons to Vietnam, China and 'After Pancasan,'

tion of forces

[

'

A 82

Guerrilla

War - People 's War

The experiences of a predominantly urban country like Uruguay were certainly not transferable to Nicaragua. The mountains were still seen, in Ruiz's phrase, as 'the crucible of the revolution', and it was difficult to develop the same qualities in urban Algeria as well as to other Latin American struggles.

militants as in the rural guerrilleros. In

Managua

especially, the nerve centre

of Somoza's military machine, cadres had little space or time in which to develop. As the most exposed members of the organisation, they required particular qualities of courage

and commitment, yet for security reasons they

could not be privy to detailed information about the location and movements of the rural guerrilla. A single captured urban cadre cracking under torture ^^

might reveal an entire rural network. Urban cells in Nicaragua were peculiarly vulnerable to the insidious intelligence network which Somoza had built, not only through the Office of Security (OSN) but through the hundreds of orejas ('ears') painstakingly recruited by the dictator^ s father to give him advance warning of political opposition. The dilemma for the Frente was to keep the Guard off balance

by building small centres of resistance throughout Managua, but at the same time ensuring that the discovery of a single safe house would not mean the decapitation of the whole urban movement. Even so, the Guardia did pick up information on one such house in the Delicias del Volga, a few blocks west of the old city centre of Managua. On July 15 1969 they attacked, and as usual Somoza's response was military overkill: a 2y2-hour attack supervised by Samuel Genie, director of the OSN, in which regular troops carrying heavy machineguns and teargas were backed up by aircraft and a Sherman tank. Five FSLN militants died in the raid, including Julio Buitrago of the national leadership, and two others were captured alive. In the weeks that followed, Sandinista suspects were rounded up throughout Managua. It was a time of great introspection and self-criticism. Not only was the \ Frente 's overall strategy unclear, but the documents circulating within the organisation at the end of the 1960s catalogued a whole series of errors — inadequate recruitment methods, insufficient membership, cases of individualism within the leadership and a poor understanding of the relationship between urban mass organisation and rural warfare. The last complaint was eventually instrumental in dividing the FSLN in 1975. For the time being, however, the leadership remained unified, if in some instances ^

chastened.

The Frente evaluated the

lessons of the previous decade,

and

faced the classic contradiction of any guerrilla organisation in

in

its

doing so

early years,

analysed in Debray's>4 Critique of Arms, between the military need for mobility to avoid pursuit and encirclement, and the political need for a base

from which to organise civilian support and create an embryonic local power structure .^^ Pancasan had partially answered this question as far as the rural areas were concerned, but the urban dilemma remained unresolved. Fonseca and other leaders had already identified the danger of allowing the battle front to develop only in a localised theatre of operations easily isolated

from the

rest

of the country, but the absence of fixed guerrilla camps would

83

:

Overthrowing and Dictatorship in turn

impede the training of

local cadres able to

go off and organise the^ The proof given byJJi£_

revolutionary struggle in other parts of the country.

Delicias del Volga attack of the Frente's vulnerability in urban areas imposed even greater secrecy on the organisation. This combination of factors led to a painful decision: the national leadership

tion should go completely

ordered in4^97Q that the organisa-

underground and only go i nto co mbat

as a last

resort.

The

of the period came just before this again it took place in the departamento of Matagalpa in the mountains of Zinica and El Bijao. But this was no simple re-run of Pancasan. The FSLN had agreed to forsake the galvanising effect of dramatic military action, and was now talking of a strategy of 'prolonged popular war in the mountains. The Zinica battle with the National Guard formed part of this conception. The composition of what was by now a small guerrilla army was different too: the peasant support for Pancasan had now come to fruition, and the Zinica guerrilla was almost exclusively made up of peasants. The group had gained combat experience in a series of minor skirmishes throughout 1969, and at Zinica for the first time a guerrilla column was not destroyed. Somoza threw a military cordon around the area, but the combatants succeeded in piercing it. Nor could the dictator hide his own losses, which included a helicopter gunship.^^ Peasant fighters gained new confidence in their military abilities as a result of Zinica. Many members of the original leadership were absent from Zinica. They were now directing their efforts towards defining the Frente's ideological programme more clearly. Fonseca had left for a protracted stay in Cuba, where he set about consolidating old friendships and writing extensive studies of Nicaraguan history, having now been named General Secretary of the last

decision

—

major

rural guerrilla action

in the early

months of 1970;

FSLN. The Frente published its minimum programme and internal statutes and the leadership was restructured in a move away from centralised to collective authority. With the FSLN underground, the need to project itself through intermediate organisations became more urgent than ever. Work began in earnest in the factories and working-class barrios, and the FSLN gained support at the expense of the PSN, with former Socialist militants flocking to join the organisation after the 1967 election debacle in which the Socialist Party had supported the presidential ticket of the Conservative Aguero. The new FSLN recruits were almost all factory workers,^^ and the groundwork was laid for later advances in Sandinista trade union organisation.

In the universities,

it

story. Although the FSLNjemained began to notice their student sons and weekends and returning home from meetings^in

was the same

invisible, middle-class parents

daughters disappearing at the middle of the night.

The student organisation FER was again

active.

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro's assessment of the student movement in Managua was this: '70% of them are Marxists, about 25% are social-cristianos, and the remaining 5% are nothing at all. For these youngsters, to be a Conservative or a Liberal is like going out into the tropical sun wearing a bowler hat.''^'*

84

I

.

Guerrilla

Somoza, despite forming never

made any

War - People 's War

a Liberal Party student federation, the

inroads into the universities, and the

FER came

FEL, had to control

the Student Council of the National University (Consejo Universitario de la

Universidad Nacional:

CUUN),

with

CUUN

statutes formally prohibiting

by any member to Somoza's Partido Liberal Nacionalista. The FER and other intermediate organisations presented FSLN demands at a local level and in the workplace, putting across — as far as conditions permitted - the political line of the underground leadership. An unstoppab le spiral bega ai-NjaliQnal-Giiard terrorism on one hand, popular mobilisation and protest on the other (The maltreatment of political prisoners, with the torture, solitary confinement and threatened killing of those held in the Carcel Modelo prison in Tipitapa, formed part of an aggressive strategy by the Guard and the Office of Security to flush the Frente out into the open. But only a handful of combatants died in armed confrontations between ^ 1970 and 1972, and the Sandinistas managed to avoid any ill-considered frontal response to Somoza's provocations. All long-time FSLN militants admit that the task of building the organisation's mass credibility while remaining hidden was one of the hardest periods in a decade of struggle. But it worked. Nicaraguans began to lose their fear. Mobilisation increased, and the F^yjLwasitsJbai^ In May and June 1970, mothers and students carried out a hunger strike in solidarity with political prisoners, and in September a massive national protest swept through all major cities. In January 1971 students and workers in Leon mobilised against increases in transport costs. More hunger strikes followed in April, and peasant groups demonstrated against National Guard savagery in the north, with Somoza sending in helicopter gunships to put down protests in Matagalpa in May. 1972 continued in the same vein: more hunger strikes in April, student and worker protests against gasoline and milk price rises in May, marches in Managua to demand freedom for Sandinista prisoners in November, In the southern departamentos of Masaya, Granada, Carazo and Rivas, the most heavily populated areas outside the capital, the Sandinistas had been trying to open up a new front for revolutionary work under the direction of Tomas Borge. The village of Nandaime, which stands at the intersection of the Panamerican highway and the main road to Granada, was a key point in this effort, controlling communications between the four departamentos Here the Frente had installed a safe house known as 'La Ermita', and again, disastrously, Somoza's intelligence managed to locate it. Juan Jose Quezada, who had become an important figure in organising peasant support for the guerrilla in the northern mountains of Waslala and Cerro Grapde, was on guard outside La Ermita on 17 September 1973 when a National Guard patrol attacked, leaving Quezada and three other Sandinistas dead. Two of them, Oscar Turcios and Ricardo Morales, had been members of the FSLN's national leadership. The severity of this blow to the FSLN^ clandestine structure coincided with an^congmic situation which restored some initiative to the PSN in the face of increased workin g-class dis content after the earthquake. Through its affiliation

)

,

j

85

Overthrowing the Dictatorship

CGT-I trade union federation, the Socialists led the successful building workers' strikes of 1973, and the FSLN was not yet able to provide leadership for a strike on this scale. Nevertheless, the FER gave vocal backing to the construction workers' action and tried to project its significance beyond the narrow economism of the PSN strike call. The FER also threw itself behind 1973 and 1974 strikes by hospital workers, protests by banana workers on Standard Fruit Company plantations in Chinandega, and demands by market traders and other groups affected by the economic crisis. But this was support, not leadership, and 1974 was a difficult year. More than four years had passed since the last major military action, and with PSN control over the strike movement, a fresh bourgeois alternative being presented under the banner of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro's UDEL, and Somoza going through the motions of re-election in preparation for a new presidential term on 1 December 1974, the FSLN had to break its silence. A renewed offensive was necessary for the Frente to confirm its ascendancy within the opposition movement.^^ Equally important, the guerrilla forces in the north, now swarming with counter-insurgency forces, were imploring the leadejshjp to move on to an urban offensive to disperse the National Guard and take the heat off what had become an essentially defensive rural struggle. The form of the new offensive was unclear, but the objective need for it was overwhelming.

Breaking the Silence Los Robles, which borders the main road out to Masaya of the elegant new residential developments

Managua

since the

1972 earthquake.

It is

wWch

in

the south,

is

one

ring the old city centre of

an area of quiet, winding streets

lined with single-storey mansions in the colonial style, with inner court-

yards

The

full

of palms and flowering plants and swimming pools at the back. except for the sound of sprinklers on the lawns during

streets are quiet

the dry season, songbirds in the trees and the occasional Mercedes or Chevrolet gliding into the kerb.

ho liday of 1974. for a suitable the morning of 27 Decernber, one of the Sandinista commanders, German Pomares, picked up an announcement on the radio by Laszlo Pataky, a former Foreign Legionnaire and now a journalist and close friend of Somoza's, giving details of a reception which would be given that night at a house in Los Robles for the United States Ambassador Turner B. Shelton. The host was Jose Maria ('Chema') Castillo Quant, formerly linked with Somoza's Office of Security and then Minister of Agriculture. Castillo was also a rich cotton exporter and a close political

The Frente had waited over

time and place to stage their

the Christmas

new

offensive.

On

confidant of the dictator.

The

target

was perfect. As well

as Castillo, the party

would include

Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa, who was Nicaragua's ambassador to the United States as well as dean of the Washington diplomatic corps and the man who

86

Guerrilla

War - People

's

War

had done more than any other to promote the Somoza image of 'loyal friend' to every US line in international affairs. Other guests would be Alejandro Montiel, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Guillermo Lang, Nicaraguan consul in New York; Noel Pallais Debayle, Somoza's first cousin and president of INFONAC, the state institution responsible for managing 90% of foreign credits and all agricultural and industrial development programmes; Alfonso Deneken, recently appointed ambassador of the Chilean junta; and half a dozen other prominent politicians and industrialists. Once Pomares had picked up the news, the plan went into action swiftly. 'Marcos', one of the members of the commando unit, gave this account: 'At eleven in the morning, the order was given for the commando unit to prepare for action. The M-1 carbines were checked, along with the .22 hunting rifles, one R-18, a .45, several small arms and six hand-grenades. In a woven cotton bag, each member of the group carried a large plastic bag to store water in case the supply was cut off, torches, bicarbonate, vitamins, medicine, glucose, serum, nylon ropes, aspirins and notebooks. The mark of identification was to be a red and black handkerchief - the colours of the Sandinista National Liberation Front — and as a disguise we were to wear stocking-masks.'^^

The

raid

had to be delayed

until a

few minutes

after

Ambassador Shelton

commando

of 13, including three women, was given the order to attack. As they burst in, their first words were 'This is a

had

left,

but at 10.50 pjn. the

political operation.

Hands on your heads and

Sandinista National Liberation Front.

The attack took favourite haunt of

against the wall. This

at

the

Somoza was in summoned back to

the dictatorship utterly by surprise.

Miami

is

VIVA SANDINO!'

the time and had to be

his

Managua by his half-brother Jose to direct operations. He threw a cordon of 500 soldiers of the 'General Somoza' combat battalion around the area, and within hours declared a state o7 siege, martial law, press censorship, and a duskjg dawn curfew. The state of siege was to last for 33 months. The Frente requested Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo of Managua, a figure now firmly opposed to the regime, as mediator, and held firm to their demands. The central demand was the release of a number of political prisoners whose presence was essential for the new phase of the war, among them Daniel Ortega Saavedra of the national leadership and the leading trade union organiser Jose Benito Escobar. This new phase would begin with the Chema Castillo attack, the opening of a general offensive in which broad sectors of the Nicaraguan people would participate, by dealing a debilitating blow to the morale of the regime. Clearly the attack, a dramatic surprise raid planned in absolute secrecy, could not be accompanied by organised mass action. But the masses, though unprepared, showed solidarity with the < actioajnd were inspired by this proof of the regime's vulnerability. In the. "3ays which followed, there was a striking if as yet incoherent upsurge in working-class cornbativity.^^

Somoza had no alternative but to meet the Frente's political objectives. The prrsoners were released, a $2-millibn ransom paid, and long

L

87

Overthrowing the Dictatorship

communiques published in La Frensa, El Centrnamericmo 2Ln^ the government paper Novedades; they were also broadcast on two TV channels and six radio stations. In its second communique, the 'Juan Jose Quezada' comT^at unit, named after one of the Nandaime killed the previous September, spelt out the Frente's demands for the Nicaraguan working class. These were for immediate across-the-board wage

rises for all industrial

and agricultural

workers, special provisions for domestic workers, a one-month bonus for hospital, construction, textile, and sugar workers, and a wage increase for

men

of the National Guard to 500 cordobas ($7 1 ) a month This Somoza, although he had no option but to pay When the commando flew out to Cuba after the 60-hour siege,

enlisted last

demand

.

particularly infuriated

.

accompanied by 18 prisoners and applauded all along the airport road by crowds shouting 'Viva el Frente! Viva Sandino! ', they left behind a humiliated dictator. Arriving at Jose Marti International Airport

in Havana, one of the group told the waiting press: 'We are not supermen, we are mothers of children, nurses, workers, peasants, students, humble people whose lives sum up all the exploitation of our people.' As well as humiliating Somoza, and publicising that humiliation through ^ the world's press, 27 December 1974 aggravated the political crisis~of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie. It delineated more clearly tha n ever before those sectors of finance capital who would ultimately stick by the dictatorship and those other bourgeois groups whose opposition would now grow more outspoken. 'After the action,' remarked Borge sardonically, 'they became the

most ardent revolutionaries in the world.' And after taking a brief initiative in 1973 and 1974, the PSN could hardly deny that the Chema Castillo operation had done more to radicalise the working class, by directly linking major wage increases to a political document denouncing the crimes of the dictatorship, than any number of strikes and peaceful forms of 'civic action'.

Somoza 's

Offensive:

The

State of Siege

'If Somoza was unable to pull the fish out of the water', wrote a Nicaraguan author describing the 33 months of repression which followed, 'he would try to empty the pond or poison it.'^^ Although the Chema Castillo operation opened up a new phase in the struggle, the Frente was driven back on to the

defensive by Somoza's frenzied response. While the

some inroads

into labour

movement

FSLN managed

hospital workers and construction unions, the dictatorship

attack as soon as the 'Juan Jose Quezada' prisoners were on the aircraft to Cuba.

militancy in the

cities,

to

make

organising, helping to radicalise the

commando and

Moving

to

moved on

to the

the liberated

smash factory and barrio

the djctator took the jrijlitary war to where the

vanguard was_^jn the rnountaios of Matagalpa, taking full advantage of the state of siege and press blackout to grant extraordinary mihtary £g\vers and cover up the atrocities committed by the Guard against, the northfim. peasant p_opuLati.gn. In throwing the Guard's crack troops into the north, he

88

Guerrilla

War - People's War

one of the major aims of the December attack: to relieve pressure on The remaining weaknesses of the FSLN^s urban network, meanwhile, left it unable to sustain an offensive designed to keep the National Guard simultaneously engaged on two fronts, or to develop fully the new potential for resistance among the urban masses. stifled

the beleaguered rural guerrilla

Somoza ordered

.

the Guardians best counter-insurgency troops to

comb

\

every inch of the mountains where the guerrillas operated most freely. To accompany these 'search and destroy' missions, aircraft of the Nicaraguan

\

many cases to the use of napalm and were burned out and their crops destroyed, women raped. Half a dozen concentration camps were set up in Matagalpa and Zelaya, and another in Chinandega. In April 1976, 100 peasant families disappeared from three northern hamlets, and in November 1977 Nicaraguan and American church sources listed a further 350 peasant disappearances. The number of those who died in the 33 months of the state of siege can Air Force

bombed

the area, resorting in

defoliants.^^ Peasant huts

never be calculated, but 3,000 I

t

was

a repeat

is

a

frequent estimate

.^^

of co urse of the 1930s. All Somoza's counter-insurgency

on the guerrillas: those who suffered were the and a few FSLN combatants who died in action. By now, the guerrilla columns had a familiarity with the terrain which rivalled Sandino's own. 'We grew to know the ground inch by inch, so that we could pull the enemy's beard ... We had discovered that if the campesinos gave their support, if you master the terrain, then you can prod the enemy in the back and he won't notice.'^' Military activity during this period was necessarily limited. In March 1975, Sandinistas briefly seized the small National Guard barracks at Rio Blanco in the Pancasan area. The resulting militarisation of the settlement of Rio Blanco, a blend of colonisation and repression, was characteristic of Somoza's methods in trying to smash the rural guerrilla. The hamlet, a collection of a few poor peasant huts with a small military outpost, was rapidly transformed into a thriving small town of several hundred people, and the news that the government was to drive a strategic new road through the zone brought speculative landowners into Rio Blanco at the expense of the local campesinos. The small guard post was turned into a regional counter-insurgency centre and concentration camp, where captured peasants were held in infested mud pits, interrogated, tortured and killed. 'About 75 campesinos were brought to Rio Blanco on one occasion for execution,' recalled a National Guard deserter who had served there. 'They came from El Sauce and El Viejo [villages near Esteli and Chinandega] where the intelligence service had detected Sandinista training schools where peasants received instruction before going to flght on failed to inflict real d amage

local peasant population,

,

the northern guerrilla front.

'•'^

The ferocityofSomocista repression kept the FSLN pinned down in its and it seemejd moj^entarily as.if the movement might have BeerTdestroyed. Certainly admitted Henry Ruiz, 1 977 was the year of the rural strongholds^

,

weakness. Neighbouring countries, especially Costa Rica to the south, were suddenly full of FSLN combatants and militants.

rur2i\

guerrilla's greatest

89

(

/

Overthrowing the Dictatorship its severest blow, Somoza boasted tha^ the and began to think in terms of pacifying the newly active bourgeois opposition by giving his regime the appearance of returning to normahty, and offering minimal reforms such as lifting the state of siege. The worst blow to the FSLN came on 7 November 1976. For several days, counter-insurgency patrols had been mounting night ambushes in the mountains near Zinica, after receiving information from a peasant collaborator. On the night of the 7th, a patrol surprised a small guerrilla group, and opened fire. The second body they found was that of Carlos Fonseca Amador. On Revolution Square in Managua, there are nowadays two huge por-

After dealing the organisation

FSLN was

finished,

traits flanking the

entrance to the National Palace.

One

is

of Sandino, the

other of Fonseca. Nearby, an eternal flame burns next to a simple

mausoleum, where Fonseca - the 'Supreme Commander* of the Nicaraguan Revolution - lies buried. In November 1979, a crowd of 100,000 gathered

Of all

square to

mark

the third anniversary of his death.

suffered by the

FSLN

leadership in the mid-1970s (fortunately not repeated

in the

the casualties

during the final insurrection), none hit the Frente harder than the death of

Fonsecanhrobbed them of

their General Secretary and their clearest political been convinced for twenty years that the armed struggle was the only path to achieve a very unique kind of revolution in Nicaragua. Unlike many who continued to believe throughout the insurrection that Somoza was the only obstacle to democracy, Fonseca had stated clearly from the first that: The question is not only to bring about a change of the man in power, but to transform the system, to overthrow the exploiting

thinker,

Mib had

and achieve the victory of the exploited. '^^ He had foreseen too that the Nicaraguan Revolution would be achieved by a heterogeneous mix of different ideologies, and in 1964 — at a time when he disclaimed the title of 'Marxist-Leninist' he had written that: 'I believe the Nicaraguan revolutionary should embrace a doctrine which can lead the Nicaraguan people victoriously to liberation. In my own thought, I welcome the popular substance of different ideologies: Marxism, Liberalism and Christian Socialism.'^ In this letter from prison, his arguments anticipate the need classes

more than a decade before the strategy of the final them into practice, recognising that no ideology could

for class alliances

insurrection put

in Nicaragua without encompassing the peculiarities of the country's class structure and history of nationalist resistance. Like many later Nicaraguan radicals, he believed that Sandino's teachings provided a sufficient frame of reference for

be rigidly applied to the revolutionary struggle

revolutionary opposition to

Som oza7|t

Since his death Fonseca has

become

part of the best tradition of

When a jubilant National Guard copy of the government newspaper Novedades to Tomas Borge's prison cell in the Carcel Modelo with the news of Fonseca 's death,

Nicaragua's revolutionary myth-making. officer brought a

Borge paused for a moment before replying: 'No, colonel, you're wrong. is one of the dead who never die.' The officer answered: 'You people really are incredible. '^^

Carlos Fonseca

90

Guerrilla

The FSLN

War - People 's War

Splits

moment when

the question of class alliances and major polemic within the FSLN. For another rnajoi^consequerLce of the state of siege had been a serious division within the Frente, and sadly Fonseca did not survive to see it healed. Certainly the split horrified him, for he had always paid obsessive attention to the need for discipline and unity within the organisation and the meticulous selection of militants. There had been differences of opinion between leadership and the rank and file before, as well as within the leadership itself, but this time they ran much deeper. The loss of Ricardo Morales and Oscar Turcios — killed in Nandaime in 1973 — had been a serious one for the leadership, and to this could be added criticisms of excessive centralism and a self-confessed immaturity at the highest levels of the FSLN.^^ The e nforce d clandestinity.and suffocating repression of 1974-77 brought a^physical disarticulation of the Frente, its rural guerrilla forces cut off from its urban cadres, and much of the leadership in exile or in hiding. The crucial historic int erdependency between the mountains and the city was broken^. The Frente 's crisis came in the midst of a generalised rethinking by all oppositfon forces of the strategy and ideology needed to overthrow the dictatorship. Opposition restructuring took into account a new factor, the urban working class, paying less attention to the qualitative increase in its size than to the explosion of its miHtancy. Political consciousness and mobilisation among the industrial workers of Managua continued to grow even under the state of siege, with the FSLN's intermediate organisations providing a thread of continuity. Demonstrations were organised throughout the city in protest against the harassment of trade unionists, the poor quality and escalating cost of National Guard-controlled public transport, the lack of a good water supply, street lighting and adequate housing in the barrios. They grew to such a pitch that large groups within the formal opposition, the Catholic Church and the daily La Prensa, voice of the bourgeois opposition, began to sit up and take notice of the new urban militancy. In both town and countryside, there was a convergence between FSLN and Church groups organising workers and peasants around their new demands. At the very time when the objective^couditions of the war suggested a variety of strategic options, sectors of the FSLN were operating in different locations, with different class groups and different modes of military struggle. They were unable to make contact with each other^ and rational unified discussions on future strategy became impossible. Was the battle against ^omoza to be a protracted one, to be won by adhering to the established forms of rural guerrilla warfare? Did the upsurge in working-class militancy mean that the formation of a mass Marxist party was on the cards to lead the the struggle of the proletariat? Or were the decomposition of the regime, its growing international unpopularity, and the revulsion of ever greater sections of the bourgeoisie and the Church, sufficient grounds for believing that the war could be won in the short term by explosive insurrectional actions and broad

Fonseca's deathj^^me^t a

insurrectional strategy

had become

a

91

Overthrowing the Dictatorship These in synthesis were the three options, each a legitimate one with many supporting arguments and the potential for all three to complement one another. But there was no climate in which the discussion could take place, and by 1975 an open rift developed. During the critical period of the state of siege, the bourgeois opposition had far more room to manoeuvre than the Sandinistas. The Frente had to rethink its relationship to the bourgeoisie or risk being outflanked by it. Clashes broke out between the older military leaders of the rural guerrilla and younger urban recruits. Clashes over the relative merits of military and political work, the way in which the FSLN was to consolidate its vanguard role, the timing and strategy of the final push against Somoza. The arguments crystallised into three separate tendencies. Tliey:,were.lhe urban Tendencia Proletaria (Proletarian Tendency: TP); the rural Guerra Popular Prolongada (Prolonged Popular War: GPP); and a third group, the protagonists of broad class alliances and a rapid overthrow of Somoza, the Tendencia Insurreccional (Insurrectional Tendency, commonly known as_ 'Terceristas\) .'When the world's press began to pay attention to the Nicaraguan crisis in 1978, it became conventional to describe the FSLN as 'two parts Marxist, one part moderate'. Like most media labels, the description is simplistic and grossly misleading. class alliances?

For A Marxist Party The Proletarian Tendency The critiques and independent actions of a small urban-based sectio n of the FSLN became incompatible with the continuing unity of the organisation in :

the harsh conditions of the state of siege. In Ckrtober 1975, the leadership

among the rank and file and uiidermining their authority. They felt that disciplinary action against individuals, expulsion or suspension, was the only solution to the problem. In response, a section of the Frente 's membership including both factory workers and intellectuals, split off, and called itself the FSLN-Proletario or Tendencia Proletaria (TP) believing that the key strategic role of the proletariat should_ now be reflected directly in the name of the vanguard. The overall dominance of agriculture in the Nicaraguan economy had obscured to many analysts the new revolutionary potential of the urban workers and the steady proletarianisation since the 1950s of their rural counterparts in important agroexporting enterprises. It was a trend which some Marxist intellectuals had touched on persuasively, and not least among these was Jaime Wheelock Roman, whose important piece Imperialismo y Dictadura had been completed the previous year, 1974.^^ Wheelock emerged now as one of the leaders of the new tendency, together with Roberto Huembes - later killed in combat - and Luis Carrion, today second in command of the Sandinista People's Army. The Proletarians saw major contradictions between the dominant role of the working class and over-concentration on a rural guerrilla war depending on peasant support, a strategy which the Frente had used, with modifications, for fourteen years. Nor could the proletariat be left to go its own way. The certain outcome of that would be to hand it on a plate to the Socialist Party accused the group of sowing sectarianism

92

I

Guerrilla

and the bourgeois opposition group

UDEL. The TP saw

War - People 's War

only one answer:

the creation of a Marxist-Leninist party of the proletariat. Like the national leadership, it also claimed to be the vanguard of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

NoFonly, however, 'the vanguard detachment of the proletariat and the Nicaraguan people', but also 'the embryo of the future revolutionary party of the working-class.'^^ The TP therefore concentrated its energies on political, educational and agitational work with urban working-class cadres, among the rnarginal barrio-dv/eWers of Managua's outlying slums and the proletarianised agricultural workers of the Pacific Coast, in the sugar refineries and cotton-processing plants of the departamentos of Leon and Chinandega. They launched two publications, the ideological Causa Sandinista and the military El Combatiente Popular. In the second number oi Causa Sandinista, the Proletarians argued their case: 'We must promote the formation of unions, peasant leagues, professional associations, democratic organisations of workers, women and youth; every kind of legal illegal open or clandestine organisation. Without mass organisations, the revolutionary struggle against the dictatorship has no effective underpinning.'^^ Each of these organisations, the TP stressed, must maintain its class independence from the bourgeoisie. Because of the problems of communication, TP activity was forcibly divorced from the activities of the rest of the FSLN. Autonomously, they created the Comites Obreros Revolucionarios (Revolutionary Workers^ Committees: COR) in factories and barrios. Nor did they neglect the military aspects of the struggle. Although the Proletarians' resources were limited, they proposed armed detachments of the working class around the notion of 'popular violence', arming their members in Comandos Revolucionarios del Pueblo (Revolutionary People's Commandos: CRP). These managed to sustain a certain level of harassment of the National Guard and armed propaganda in Managua, Masaya, Granada and the north-west. By the last months of 1977, when the majority tendency of the FSLN was attelripting to channel popular anger through rapid insurrectional strikes, the ,

Proletarians stuck to their

work of building

these popular committees and

other class-based organisations. In addition to the loyal to the

TP came

,

COR,

five

other groups

together to produce an agitational publication called

Libertad. They were the FER-Marxista Leninista, which had split from the main body of the student federation; the Movimiento Cristiano Revolucionario (Revolutionary Christian Movement: MCR); the Movimiento Estudiantil de Secundarios (Secondary School Student Movement: MES); the Federacion de Movimientos Juveniles de Barrios de Managua (Federation of Managua barrio Youth Movements: FMJBM); and the Comite Universitario de Solidaridad con el Pueblo (University Committee of Solidarity with the People: CUSOP). The backing (or Libertad suggested strongly the groups from which the TP drew its support — above all the youth and student Left. But the tendency also tried to project itself at a national level, and put together a minimum programme of government. The document, outlined in a 1978 communique, went much further in its demands than the parallel minimum programme of the FSLN's national

93

.

Overth ro wing the

D ic ta torsh ip

leadership at the time, especially on the central issues of agrarian reform and nationalisation. While the majority tendency

of

all

Somoza-owned property,

was demanding the confiscation

the Proletarians called for ^liquidation of the

latifundio pattern of land ownership and lands left idle by their owners; their reorganisation into collective modes of production and individual ownership which benefits poor and landless campesinos. [And] nationalisation of the banks; control of foreign trade by the state; nationalisation of foreign-owned industries and basic industry.'"*^ The Frente's national leadership came down hard on the TP, accusing it of misusing the name FSLN. Internal documents of the time admitted that the group was maintaining a certain level of activity among popular sectors and the student movement, while attacking it for placing greater emphasis on propaganda (circulars, wall-paintings, etc) than onjnore sustained organisational work. It is true that the IP's achievements were restricted by its size and the conditions in which it worked. Nevertheless, its work made a long-term impact (at least at the theoretical level) out of all proportion to its small number of militants. Its impact was also manifested in the

embryonic formation of class-based organisations which have power-

fully represented the

Nicaraguan masses through the

first

year of their

revolution^ Despite the predominance of middle-class intellectuals in the

Tendencia Proletaria,

it is

not

dwellers in post-insurrectional

uncommon to come across workers and slumManagua who trace their first identification

with the vanguard back to the agitational work of the Proletarians

in the

barrios and factories. J

Prolonged Popular War Much of the original guerrilla nucleus of the FSLN, claiming that they faithfully represented the founding principles of the organisation, remained in the mountainous north to build up its forces. The name of this tendency came from its strategy of a 'prolonged popular war' — Guerra Popular Prolongada, or GPP. This in no sense meant that the GPP was exclusively concerned with the rural struggle. Like the Proletarians, it believed in the necessity of building up socialist consciousness among the urban masses. But since its main military force was pinned down in the north among the peasants, it suffered more than other sectors of the FSLN from the urban-rural dislocation of the state of siege. The GPP was headed by Henry Ruiz ('Modesto'), now Nicaragua's Minister of Planning.and acknowledged as one of the organisation's finest strategists of guerrUla warfare. For long periods during

the state of siege, the GPP's other most prominent leader

was languishing

in

Somoza's prisons, while

a third,

- Tomas

Borge

-

Pedro Arauz, was killed

in action.

The term guerra popular prolongada had been in current use to describe mainstream FSLN strategy in the period before the split became apparent, and had been defined in a message from the Juan Jose Quezada commando unit as 'the political and military confrontation of the organised people against their foreign and local enemies during the time required for careful

94

Guerrilla

War - People 's War

.'^^ In other words, the preparation and development before the final battle GPP still believed that a decisive insurrection against Somoza was a relatively

distant project, and that the dictatorship would crumble slowly in the face oTorganisedmass action. The level of consciousness of a working class coming to power was alsoT^ource of great concern to the GPP. Seeing the fpTitical backwardness in which four decades of Somocismo had submerged

the people, they believed that only a lengthy struggle could allow socialist

consciousness to develop adequately."*^

But the military pressure on the GPP, and the physical isolation of their made it difficult for them to break out of a defensive posture

best militants,

and sustain the

level

of military action which would have significant reper-

cussions in the country. While the Proletarians

majority tendency around the

FSLN

worked

in the cities

likelihood of a successful insurrection in the short term, the

low

and

a

new

national leadership began to talk of the

GPP was

forced

mountains, carrying out brief occupations of villages and harassing National Guard detachments to wear down the morale of the troops and slowly build up stocks of arms. The repression which left the GPP cut off as a tendency also affected its internal into keeping a

organisation.

profile in the northern

Columns were unable

to contact each other directly, even

when

operating only a few kilometres apart, and had to rely on campesino intermediaries to retain any semblance of concerted military operations.

When

the

GPP

talked of accumulating forces,

a gradual build-up of material,

human and

patient process. But others in the dTfferent significance, one political situation

FSLN

what they had

in

mind was

ideological resources, a solid

and

believed that the term could have a

which depended on

a less defensive reading of the

of the country: 'We measured accumulation not merely

in

material terms but also in terms of the dynamics of the enemy's decomposi-

was an analysis which the GPP was badly placed to exploit. Only towards the end of 1977 did spectacular military actions by the majority tendency, discussed in the following chapter, ease the pressure on the GPP a

tion."*^ It

Until then, their isolation had been almost total, and the disputes between rank and file militants and local leaders in some towns had become worse. The GPP saw its urban base stagnant, if not eroded, and it relied for its mass impact on the student PER, though this too had split in the wake of the Proletarian Tendency schism. It was a vicious circle for the GPP: little military vanguard action to stimulate the urban support network, and a limited base of support outside the combat zone, further weakening its military capacity. Finally, GPP leader Henry Ruiz - a firm believer in eventual FSLN reunification, and who might have been expected to adopt a conciliatory position on the organisation's internal crisis -had been interned for months at the head of the 'Pablo Ubeda' guerrilla column in a remote mountain area and was effectively out of touch with his fellow members of little.

the

FSLN

national leadership.

Third Alternative: Insurrection Members of the FSLN leadership

in exile tried to find a

way through

the

95

Overthrowing the Dictatorship dispute racking the Frente. Emerging as mediators, they a 'third force' within the

-

FSLN, and rift

to represent

known

Tercemtas. The two who came back were Carlos Fonseca, founder of the Frente

especially outside Nicaragua

to Nicaragua to heal the

-

came

this led to their being popularly

as the

and its undisputed leader, and Eduardo Contreras. But the split had run too deep for any immediate reconciliation. The new strategic line which emerged from the talks put insurrection on the agenda as a complement to the war of attrition being waged by the GPP and the urban organisation of the Proletarians, and rapidly the new analysis was supported by a majority of the national leadership. Those who put forward the new approach were staking their hopes on two factofs: the immediate capacity of the people to be galvanised into mass insurrection by decisive military action from the vanguard, and the increasing rapprochement between sectors of the opposition bourgeoisie and the Left. They based their analysis on the 'floating' nature of many of Nicaragua's middle sectors, and saw that the petty bourgeoisie, professionals and many Church groups could be won over to an insurrectional struggle, without this tactical alliance placing the FSLN under bourgeois leadership. Rapid recruitment to the new Terceristas (or Tendencia Insurreccional) followed from Church and lay workers, lawyers, academics and some lumpen elements. To some, it seemed an over-hasty sacrifice of ideological purity not to mention a security risk, but by 1977 the Insurrectional found themselves making preparations for a swift push against a weakened dictator in the face of open criticisms from the other two tendencies. U sing their rniddle-class contacts to build a powerful movement of international solidarityjn Latin America, North America and Western Europe, the Insurrectionals quickly became by far the majority tendency within the FSLN. The split was by now public knowledge, and the Insurrectionals became impatient at the other tendencies' refusal to admit the logic behind a prompt uprising from broad sectors of the population. They were stung too by the harsh public attacks on the new strategy, attacks which they believed could only benefit Somoza and the bourgeois opposition by projecting the image of ,

a bitterly divided vanguard. In the three-way split, each of the tendencies

took corresponding sectors of the established student movement with it, and was here that the Terceristas were arguably weakest. The bulk of the old Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario remained loyal to the GPP; the Proletarians took the FER-Marxista-Leninista and the new Juventud Revolucionaria Nicaraguense (Nicaraguan Revolutionary Youth: JRN); while the Insurrectionals gained the support of the Juventud Revolucionaria Sandinista (JRS). The severe blows which the Frente had suffered during the state of siege also had serious repercussions on the stability of the leadership. Depleted by imprisonment and by deaths in combat, notably that of Fonseca, it was forced to restructure more than once. With the release of Daniel Ortega and Jose Benito Escobar from jail after the Chema Castillo operation in December 1974, the leadership had expanded to twelve members in the early part of 1975, but losses in battle cut it again to seven. By 1977, the effective leaderit

96

y Cuerrilla War -

People's War

ship was further reduced to six, with the renewed imprisonment of the GPP comandante Tomas Borge. The losses brought a salutary lesson: that no

member of the leadership could be considered indispensable. Accordingly, deputies were named to assume leadership functions in the event of further deaths, and the leadership

Of those who remained

became more

flexible

and

less centralised."*^

1977, a definite majority favoured the insurrectional strategy. In this belief the Ortega brothers, Daniel and Humberto, were joined by two men who were an eloquent indication of the Central American internationalist tradition, the Mexican Victor Tirado Lopez (already referred in

and the Costa Rican Plutarco Hernandez. Henry Ruiz and Jose Benito Escobar (killed in combat near Esteli in June 1978) were clearly aligned with to)

GPP, while the Proletarians had no voice on the national leadership. With the death of Hernandez and the isolation of 'Modesto', the Ortega brothers and Victor Tirado Lopez became the joint signatories of all FSLN leadership declarations. The identification of the Direccion Nacional with the Insurrectional Tendency was now manifest, though the tendency's name never appeared in documents. In mid-1978, one such communique the

armed insurrection of means to achieve the revolutionary overthrow of the Somoza dynasty and open up a process of popular democracy, which will allow our people to enjoy democratic liberties, a more favourable framework in which to accumulate the revolutionary energies required for the march towards synthesised the aims of the national leadership: 'The the masses

full

is

a

national liberation and socialism

.'^^

The question which would be posed to the Insurrectional was whether were mere spontaneism, divorced from the masses, or whether their encouragement of alliances with other anti-Somoza forces was in itself a legitimate step towards creating a mass base. It remained now for the Insurrectional to mount the spectacular armed offensive which would bring the masses on to the streets and assure the FSLN of a dominant role their military actions

in the

overthrow of somocismo.

Notes 1

2.

Gerassi (ed.), Venceremos - The Speeches and Writings of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), p. 267. Henry Ruiz, 'La Montana Era Como un Crisol Donde se Forjaban los

J.

Mejores Cuadros',

3.

4.

in Nicarauac, No. (Managua, Ministerio de Cultura: May-June 1980), p. 24. BlsLudon, Entre Sandino y Fonseca Amador, pp. 9\-6, 142-7. Tomas Borge, Carlos, El Amanecer Ya No Es una Tentacion (Managua,

SENAPEP,

1

1979), p. 23.

6.

F onseca, Nicaragua - Hora Cero. Tomas Borge, 'La formacion del FSLN', in La Revolucion A Traves de Nuestra Direccion Nacional (Managua, SENAPEP, 1980) pp. 27-8.

7.

Ibid., p. 30.

5.

97

.

.

.

.

Overthrowing the Dictatorship 8.

See Carlos Fonseca,

Un Nicaraguense en Moscu (Managua, SENAPEP

reprint, 1980). 9.

10. 1

1

.

12.

Henry Ruiz,/oc. cit., p. 16. Borge, 'La Formacion del FSLN', p. 3 Unidad de Combate 'Juan Jose Ouezada',MeA25fl/e Nicaragua; communique, 27 December 1974 Henry Ruiz,/oc. cit., p. 16. 1

no. 2 al

Pueblo de

16.

Yo Deserte de la Guardia p. 2 50 Anos de Lucha Sandinista, \). 107. 'Modesto' was the nom de guerre of Comandante Henry Ruiz. Omar Cabezas, 'Por el Duro Camino de Nuestra Revolucion', in

17.

Nicarauac, No. 2, July-August 1980, pp. 28-9. Gladys B2Lez,Pancasan (Leon, Editorial Universitaria de

13.

14. 1

5

Robleto

Siles,

Humhtxio

.

.

.

1

',

OvXtgdi,

la

UNAN,

1979),

p. 17.

18.

Tomas Borge,

Carlos, El

Amanecer Ya No Es una Tentacion,

pp. 46-7.

19. Ibid., p. 51.

20. See Henry Ruiz,/oc. cit. 21. Regis Debray,^ Critique of Arms, p. 145,

(Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977),

22. Doris l'\]tnno, Inside the Nicaraguan Revolution, p. 1 73. The chronology contained in this book, pp. 168-76, is a useful guide to FSLN political

and military action, and Somocista repression,

in the

period from 1961

to 1974.

Amanecer Ya No Es una Tentacion, Quoted in Crsiv/ley^ Dictators Never Die, p. 150. 25. Humberto Ortega, op. cit., p. 121. 23. Borge, Carlos, El

p. 57.

24.

26. Jaime Wheelock, Z)/cz>m^re K/cronojo (Managua,

SENAPEP,

1979),

p. 9.

December 1979. La caida del Somocismo,

27. Barricada, 27

Lopez

p. 161 Ernesto Cardenal, interview with Excelsior, March 977. 30. See Fernando Cardenal, testimony before the International Organisations Sub-Committee of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Washington D.C., 8-9 June 1976. Major parts of this testimony are reproduced in Nicaragua: El Pueblo Frente A La Dinastia (Madrid, Instituto de Estudios Politicos para America Latina y Africa, 1978), pp. 96-104..

28.

et

al..

29.

31.

1

Henry Ruiz,/oc.

cit., p.

21.

Robleto Siles, op. czY., p. 151. 33. Carlos Fonseca, Nicaragua - Mora Cero. 34. Carlos Fonseca, Desde la Carcel Yo Acuso 32.

A La Dictadura, Managua, Carcel de la Aviacion, 8 July 1964. 35. Borge, Carlos, El Amanacer Ya No Es una Tentacion, p. 80. 36. Humberto Ortega, interview with Marta Harnecker, originally published in Bohemia, Havana; English version, 'The Strategy of Victory', reprinted in the English-language edition of Granma, Havana, 27 January 1980. y Dictadura, especially pp. 18-19, 82. Wheelock most extensively with the break-up of the old peasantry and the introduction of wage labour in relation to coffee, rather than sugar or

37. V^heelock, Imperialismo deals

cotton production. 38. Causa Sandinista, No. 2, January-February 1978, p. 5.

98

Guerrilla

War - People

's

War

39. Ibid., p. 4. 40. FSLN-Proletario

41. Unidad de Nicaragua.

communique, somewhere in Nicaragua. 1978. Combate 'Juan Jose Quezada\ Mensaje no. 2 Al Pueblo de

42. See particularly broadsheets and communiques of the Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario during this period.

43. Daniel Ortega, interviewed in

20 November 1978. 44. Lopez, er j/., op. c/r.,

p.

1

^/f^r/iflr/yfl.

No. 189. Bogota, Colombia.

15.

45.

Henry Ruiz,/oc.

46.

FSLN circular, signed by Humberto Ortega. Daniel Ortega and Victor Tirado, somewhere in Nicaragua, July 1978.

cit.,

pp. 18-19.

99

7.

The FSLN Takes the Lead, 1977-78

^Practical revolutionary politics

the revolutionary revolution

with the

next

.

.

.

camp and

and those against

means

tracing a line

of demarcation between

the reactionary camp, between the forces for the it.

That demarcation

line will

of course

shift

movement of events, varying from one stage of the revolution to the The way the nature of the revolution is defined at any given stage

of its development determines the identification of the prime enemy, and of the goals, the moving forces and the leadership of the revolution. It also governs the policy of alliances which must be pursued. It is the business of every political vanguard to draw the line of demarcation as it is now in their country. Regis Debray* '

End

,

\ } )

/ V

\

to the State of Siege

The state of siege had failed to have the effect Somoza had so often boasted of. The revolutionary opposition, though largely invisible, was still very much alive. The consensus of tacit support from the bourgeoisie was crumbling before Somoza's eyes. Thirty -three months of martial law and press censorship from 1974 to 1977 had left the dictatorship with ai crippling contradiction: bourgeois opposition was mounting, but any partial democratisationjof the kind demanded could only bring to light the extent of the crimes committed under cover of the press blackout, thus further exposing the corruption and moral disintegration of the regime, Conflicts within the bourgeoisie were by

now

acute. Private sector groups

Empresa Privada (Higher Council of Private Enterprise: COSEP) and the development institute INDE were making ever more vocal demands for a more equitable set of rules of the capitalist game. They campaigned against state corruption, and their demands for a clean-up of the public service now found an echo in the United States Embassy. The foreign debt was out of control, and small businesses began to go to the wall. La Prensa, the main channel for bourgeois discontent, had been silenced by press censorship, and it was left to church groups and independent like the

Consejo Superior de

la

journalists to speak out in whatever

massacres in Zelaya and Matagalpa.

100

way

possible against the peasant

The In

FSLN

Takes the Lead, 1977-78

August 1977, the very core of the family dictatorship

to be vulnerable.

Somoza

and was flown off to

a

itself

was shown

suffered a massive heart attack, his second in a year,

Miami

Within the ruling Nationalist Liberal

clinic.

Party cracks began to show. There were those who thought that Somoza 's prolonged illness, and the real chance that he might not recover, meant laying plans for a change of

command. But when Somoza returned

desk, under doctor's orders to reduce his workload but

still

to his

bearing something

myth of indestructibility, those who had dared to question permanence swiftly found themselves out of favour. Cornelio Hueck, the 'Lord of Masaya' and President of the Chamber of Deputies, was the most prominent casualty. Faced with a crisis which touched even his own party, the only effective power base remaining to Somoza was the National Guard. Even the support of the United States was in doubt: with the Carter Administration's 'human rights' policy in its first year — and Somoza's Nicaragua one of its prime targets — there was an insistent pressure from the US Embassy to lift the state of siege. Sensing that the dictatorship was faltering, wide sectors of the Carter State Department began to cast around for a suitable mid-term replacement, perhaps Pedro Joaquin Chamorro's UDEL coalition. In that case La Prensa could not be silenced. The bourgeoisie must be given space to breathe and organise, or the initiative was likely to of

his father's

his

pass to the Left.

Faced with

this pressure,

Somoza

lifted the state

of siege on 5 September

197/. but"he thereby produced of course the very response he had most sought to avoid

found

it

—

an explosion of popular protest. If the private sector

convenient to use the

democratic freedoms (and

first

new on

situation to press for an extension of

their

list

was the

free exercise

competition), the initiative passed rapidly to the working

of capitalist middle

class. In the

months of 1977, there had been apparent convergence between popular and business demands. Mass demonstrations had called for an immediate restoration of minimum constitutional guarantees. But working-class protests after September 1977 received unprecedented publicity, even in La Prensa, and with this came spectacular new opportunities for previously uncoordinated struggles to be channelled into new forms of mass organisation. Resistance in the barrios took many forms: demonstrations, mass meetings, seizure of churches and schools, destruction of Somoza-owned properties, armed confrontations with the National Guard, the first small-scale use of barricades, roadblocks and bus-burnings in the working-class districts. The first radical political fronts sprang up. Some, like the women's organisation AMPRONAC, were formed spontaneously with a marked input from middle-class women, and only later acquired an openly Sandinista character. Others, like the

organisation of the rural proletariat in the Asociacion de Trabajadores del

Campo

(Rural Workers Association:

the agitational efforts of the

To

FSLN,

ATC) were

tied

from the beginning to Tendency.

particularly the Proletarian

the Insurrectionals, or Terceristas, organising the people

now

also

meant arming them. As early as April 1977, they had begun to distribute arms and give clandestine military training for an armed uprising which they

101

Overthrowing the Dictatorship

now saw

And 80% of those who took were workers. The Insurrectional felt the need to break the military silence, as the FSLN had done in December 1974, with a spectacular armed action, even if in relative isolation from the organised masses. Popular resistance to Somoza had to be ignited, the majority tendency argued, behind an insurrectional strategy. Otherwise the bourgeoisie, for all its divisions, might take advantage of the removal of the stifling restrictions of the state of siege. In October 1977 the Insurrectional risked everything: the antagonism of the GPP and the Proletarians, military annihilation and the sympathy of the masses. Taking all these dangers into account, the Insurrectional leadership ordered coordinated attacks on three National Guard targets in different parts of the country. The plan also rested on the bourgeoisie's notorious inability to master a crisis, and in this the Terceristas could claim complete success. The events of October, and their galvanising effect on the people, threw, as inevitable within a

part in the

UDEL

new

matter of months.

secret miHtary training schools

into further disarray.

October Offensive: Propaganda for Insurrection Although the remote southern barracks of San Carlos, on the southern edge of Lake Nicaragua, was the first step in a planned strategy of attack, few outside the Tercerista leadership knew what the plan was. The leadership of the Frente, the Tercerista tendency, planned the operation. I imagine that it obeyed an overall plan, because later the departmental commandpost of Masaya was attacked as well. We didn't know the reasons why the leadership had chosen San Carlos as its target. The combatants were merely following the instructions of the leadership.'^ Certainly the proximity of

San Carlos to the Costa Rican border, and the sanctuary offered to the by that country, had something to do with it. The small group of combatants left the contemplative community run by Ernesto Cardenal on the archipelago of Solentiname on the night of 12 October. For weeks the community had been practically converted into a military training school. There had been divisions within the community over the decision to take up arms against Somoza, but for the eighteen or twenty members who joined the Frente in 1977, it was the logical expression of their Christian faith, and one which was increasingly shared by large sectors of the Nicaraguan church.

Terceristas

In Solentiname, we tried to resolve problems, the problems of the whole community, using the Sunday mass ... if one person was ill, or another had no money, or another's son had been imprisoned by the National Guard. And in these Sunday assemblies we talked about the the image in justification of revolutionary violence for a Christian .

the gospels of Christ as a proletarian revolutionary.

.

.

The Nicaraguan

people were involved in a fight against injustice, and to use violence was to be willing to give your life for the liberation of Nicaragua; it

102

The was into

a

as a group.

12 1977 to attack the National Guard barracks was the nearest town to the island."'

Maybe our

Takes the Lead, 1977-78

And so, many decided to take up arms. To go And that group left Solentiname on October

violence of love.

combat

FSLN

plan was a

at

San Carlos, which

naive: we thought that we would take the move on from there to Masaya, and then to

little

barracks of San Carlos,

Granada, leaving a few people in charge of each barracks in turn. But the Granada attack never happened. Three of us who took part in the assault on San Carlos were women, and when the news broke I think it inspired other women to believe that they could join in the revolutionary struggle. We were also Christians, which had a great impact on Nicaraguans. It added a fresh dimension to people's idea of the

The San Carlos combatants were poorly armed, and although the new had given some basic instruction in the use of arms, the group took only one Garand rifle, an M-3 sub-machinegun, an M-4 carbine, a shotgun and a .22 rifle. ^ On the same day, another Sandinista commando unit attacked the National Guard post at Ocotal near the Honduran border, and ambushed Guard troops on the road between Ocotal and Dipilto. And four days later the Frente hit their most ambitious target: the heavily fortified command-post in the main square of Masaya, a strategically important town only 18 miles south-east of the capital. Even Managua was no longer secure, as the Frente attacked military targets in the city centre and ambushed patrols on the main highway into the city. On a military level, the Insurrectional Tendency had learned the art of striking training school at Solentiname

enemy on several fronts simultaneously. But the gulf between military action and political work had still to be bridged. There could be no immediate mass response — beyond an emotional one — to the October attacks, for the people had not been involved or consulted. But the example of direct combat, the proof that even a few poorly armed fighters could dent the regime's image of impregnable military strength, filtered through to the Nicaraguan people, and there was overwhelming sympathy for the courage of the combatants. As people lost their fear of openly confronting the Guard on unequal terms in the early months of 1978, the galvanising effect of October became clear. Sandinista units briefly occupied the towns of Rivas and Granada in February 1978, and in both cases found growing popular support in towns not previously known the

for their militancy. In a later interview, Daniel Ortega of the

FSLN

leadership stressed the

of the October offensive: 'Without October, there c'ouTdli'ave been no February, no National Palace in August 1978, no September 1978 insurrection.'^ At the time, though, October 1977 was hard for many to understand, and to the Proletarians and GPP it looked like old-

historical importaiTce

sTyle military politics,

unconnected to the mass

struggle.

Both tendencies

103

.

Overthrowing the Dictatorship responded sharply to the attacks. From Honduras, the GPP declared on 24 October that only prolonged war would oust Somoza.'' And a Proletarian communique in early November was phrased in even stronger terms: The Tendencia Proletaria of the FSLN expresses its disagreements with the actions of Masaya, San Carlos and Ocotal, which constitute ^o/p/^m adventures which have not counted on the organised support of the working masses; they form part of the purest tradition of bourgeois cuartelazos. We direct our disapproval not at the heroic combatants who took up arms but at the Tercerista leadership.'^ But the fighting strength of the FSLN was no longer to be taken lightly. 2i

.

.

.

In late October 1977, in the midst of a rash of

declarations on the

SCHOOLS

IN

crisis,

La Prensa

UDEL

and private sector

carried a bold headline: '50

OPERATION, SAYS ORTEGA.' Accompanying

TRAINING this

announcement of the FSLN's new military and organisational capacity was a photograph of Humberto Ortega, one of the Tercerista leaders. The headline coincided with the appearance of a new group who were central to the Frente's policy of class alliances and gave the Sandinistas a new legitimacy among much of the disaffected bourgeoisie

The Group of Twelve La Prensa's front page the previous day had carried an explosive political document which at a stroke shattered Nicaraguans' assumptions about the from the formal' opposition. It was signed group of twelve prominent professionals all known for the strength of their opposition to Somoza but not for any prior political activity. Fernando Cardenal, a Jesuit priest and member of the group, admitted in an interview in Costa Rica: 'This group of twelve is an unusual one. None of us is a politician. None of us has ever been involved in poHtics. None of us is interested in power. '^ But the time had come, they felt, to speak out in favour of the FSLN. The signatories of the document - 'Los Doce', as they came to be known — were two lawyers (Ernesto Castillo and Joaquin Cuadra); two businessmen (Emilio Baltodano and Felipe Mantica); two priests (Fernando Cardenal and Miguel D'Escoto); an academic (Carlos Tunnermann); a writer (Sergio Ramirez); an agronomist (Ricardo Coronel); an architect (Casimiro Sotelo); a banker (Arturo Cruz) and a dental surgeon (Carlos Gutierrez). It was precisely their lack of a specific political constituency and their impeccable professional credentials which gave th^ Los Doce grou^ such alleged gulf separating the Frente

by

a

influence at a time

when

the bourgeois opposition and the

FSLN

were

following separate, and apparently mutually exclusive, paths in their fight

Somoza. The main impact of Los Doce's declaration was their no solution could be found fo the country's political crisi s without the full participation of the FSLN. 'For more than a decade,' said the document, 'the FSLN and the blood spilt by so many young people are the best testimony to the permanence and presence of this struggle, carried out against

;

insistence that

104

I

The

FSLN

Takes the Lead, 1977-78

with an ever greater degree of political maturity.' For a group of prominent citizens of purely bourgeois extraction to praise the Frente for its political maturity shook a confused opposition bourgeoisie even further out of

its stride.

The

UDEL

leadership promptly

went into The

closed session to decide on their response, but failed to find one.

development institute INDE attempted, but without success, to distort the Los Doce document and portray it as endorsing their own concept of dialogue with Somoza. As for the FSLN, it reacted enthusiastically. Within a

week of

the document's publication, the national leadership

—

in a

nique signed not only by Tercerista leaders but by Henry Ruiz of the

commuGPP -

formally asked Los Doce to represent the Sandinistas in any search for a political solution.

The

close relationship

between the Frente and Los Doce was enduring.

of a broad anti-Somoza front under revolutionary leadersfiip^ an essential part of the FSLN's insurrectional strategy - Los Doce provided a bridge for programmatic agreements between the Sandinistas and In the consfruction

more progressive sectors of the bourgeois opposition. Eventually, after months of mounting insurrectional activity, and a rapprochement between the Frente 's three tendencies, Los Doce returned from exile in defiance of Somoza's threats to have them imprisoned as a threat to public security. The FSLN judged the moment right for a broad opposition movement to be built on the Frente's own terms, with Los Doce playing a central role in the realignment of class forces. An FSLN document of July the

eight

1978 put

their position:

We

consider Los Doce a unifying force in that the minimum programme which they have put their names coincides with the democratising demands of the bourgeois opposition, while in no way conflicting with the

to

popular democratic proposals sketched out in the

minimum programme

of the popular and revolutionary forces. With the entry of Los

on to the scene

it is

Nicaragua which

Doce

genuinely the honest and progressive forces of

now occupy

the pivotal position which

makes unity

possible.

Later, when the September 1978 insurrection was launched, the FSLN called on Los Doce to head a provisional government whose programme would be based on the confiscation of all Somoza-owned property and the formation of a new army to replace the National Guard. And in mid-1980 (a year after the Revolution), two members of the original group of twelve were in the

Junta of Government of National Reconstruction, with a further seven occupying senior government posts.

The Terceristas held firm to the insurrectional strategy of the October 1977 offensive, although upset that the criticisms of the Proletarians and the GPP should have been made so publicly, in a way which might only benefit UDEL and the private sector. There might have been a stalemate at this point over the leadership of the opposition

movement, but

the intervention of

105

Overthrowing the Dictatorship

Los Doce in the final months of 1977 tipped the scales. They were helped by the impotence of the bourgeois opposition in the Iface of the crisis.

Response of the Private Sector: National Dialogue After the October offensive, the pages of La Prensa were suddenly

full

of

from UDEL, from COSEP, from INDE fro m the Catholic hierarchy. Almost overnight, the watchword of the private sector was a 'national dialogue' In December, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro handed the leadership of UDEL over to Rafael Cordova Rivas, a Managua lawyer from the most progressive wing of the Conservative Party, but the change of leadership did nothing to improve UDEL's ability to channel proposals to defuse the

crisis,

,

.

business discontent into a coherent poHtical strategy.

From

the start, the ne w

dialogue was less a vehicle for confrontation with the dictatorship thanji

means of allowing accommodation in order to neutralise the crisis until the 1981 elections. The pages of Z,^ Prensa during the last three months of 1977 make monotonous reading: the same complaints repeated, if infused with a

new panic as businessmen took stock of the popular impact of the Frente's October actions. In the absence of any other medium of mass communication but the government's own Novedades, the use of the Chamorro family columns was also a useful way of legitimising UDEL in people's minds as the major voice of anti-Somoza feeling, thereby channelling mass discontent towards UDEL's reformist intentions.

UDEL also tried, with some success, to use the Catholic hierarchy as a mouthpiece for its policies. An eight-column La Prensa headline on 21 October announced: 'PRIVATE ENTERPRISE UNITED FOR CHANGE! INDE

resolves to visit archbishop to ask

him

to initiate dialogue.' Similar

announcements made it clear that the private sector saw the state of incipient civil war primarily as another obstacle to the free pursuit of bourgeois economic development: 'worried by the situation of violence which blocks business activity' (INDE Granada, 29 October 1977); 'the national situation is affecting the normal development of economic activities' (INDE Matagalpa, 24 October 1977).' INDE, although representing the sector of private enterprise worst hit by government corruption, was wholly unable to grasp the real nature of a crumbling dictatorship. The Granada communique concluded lamely: 'We appeal to the government to respect the constitution.' At the end of October, the private sector named its 'National Dialogue Commission' to talk to Somoza, It consisted of Archbishop Obando y Bravo of Managua, two other bishops, a church lawyer and a young businessman who found himself thrust into a new political career which ultimately lasted through the first year of revolutionary government: the INDE president and cooking-oil manufacturer Alfonso Robelo Callejas. Somoza, to nobody's surprise, scornfully rejected the call for a dialogue. It was, he said,

'unconstitutional'.

As 1977 ended^omoza was 106

w eakened

but intransigent. The private sector

The

FSLN

Takes the Lead, 1977-78

appeared to be^t an impasse. Popular resistance was growing, but the FSLN It took a single unexpected event in January 1978 to spark ^Jhe^HnaJ crisis which would determine clearly whether the bourgeoisie or the popular forces were to guide the push against Somocismo. It was an r'emained divided.

event which "neither side could have anticipated as part of

Chamorro Assassinated

its

strategy.

\os\ Memorias, p. 54. Francisco Lopez, Report to ATC Assembly, A/e^wo/'/j.y, p. 4.

19.

U\Dk-\nKk^BoletinIn}ormativo, 1980.

20.

Interview with

15. 16.

1

17.

1980. 21.

298

Ibid.

CST

General Secretary Ivan Garcia, Managua, March

i

A 22.

Strategy for Workers and Peasants

The Open Veins of Nicaragua (London, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, 1980).

23. Barricada,SM'dTch 1980. 24. Barricada, 13 25.

December 1979. 14 November 1979.

COSEP communique,

26. El Papel de los Sindicatos en la Revolution (pamphlet) (Managua, CGT-I joint publication, 1 980), pp. 6-7.

CST/

27. CAUS communique (mimeo), February 1980. 28. Barricada, 29 April 1980. 29. Interview with Ivan Garcia.

30. In the newspaper of the Partido 31. El Partido, August 1979.

Comunista de Nicaragua, El Partido.

32. This account of the FABRITEX and other CAUS-led strikes is drawn from a number of sources: Barricada, 18-28 February 1980; a large the CST, CDS and other mass organisations; and several interviews with factory workers and union officials, Managua, February -March 1980. 33. Barricada, 20 February 1980. 34. See interview with Comandante Guerrillera Dora Maria Tellez, in Barricada, b March 1980.

number of mimeographed broadsheets from

35. Intercontinental Press, 21 July 1980. 36. Barricada, 2\ February 1980.

March 1980. Interview with Jaime Chamorro, Managua, February 1980 (quoted by field director in kind permission of Reggie Norton, former Central America). 39. Julio Rojas, CST delegate to the Council of State, interviewed in PerspectivaMundial, 28 July 1980. 40. La Completa factory worker interviewed in the CST newspaper El Trabajador, No. 3, 16 February 1980. 41. Poder Sandinista, No. 7,6 December 1979. 42. Mimeographed FSLN leaflet, undated. 43. Henry Ruiz, speech to ATC Assembly ,Memorias, p. 74. 37. Barricada, 3 38.

OXFAM

Adolfo GiWy, La Nueva Nicaragua - Antimperialismo y Lucha de Nueva Imagen, 1980), p. 33. 45. Linea de Propaganda de la Revolucion Sandinista - Documento de Estudio (Managua, SENAPEP, 1980), p. 6. 44.

Clases (Mexico City, Editorial

46. Plan 81, p. 82. 47. Dora Maria Tellez, interview in Barricada, 6 March 1980. 48. Plan 80, V. 116. 49. Tellez, loc. cit. 50.

Tim

51.

\n

Drd'imin, Nicaragua's Revolution (NACLA), p. 24. Ya Veremos, Managua, June 1980. 52. Barricada, 20 December 1979. 53. Interview with Juana Cruz, shopkeeper in Ciudad Sandino, July 1980.

299

14. Consolidating the

Revolution: Five Essays

Building Friendships against Intervention winning the struggle against Somoza, the FSLN was different from most Hberation movements in the breadth of its international diplomatic support. At the heart of Nicaragua's own feelings of solidarity lies a deep identification with Cuba, Vietnam and the popular struggle in El Salvador, and most analysis of Nicaraguan foreign policy has dwelt obsessively on these friendships and the opening of diplomatic relations with Socialist and Arab countries. However, this is to miss the point about Nicaragua's concept of non-alignment. For the FSLN, an unsolicited visit to President Jimmy Carter by three members of the Junta was an equally important affirmation of national independence. The importance of alliances in the Western capitalist world was nowhere better illustrated than in the effort to mobilise aid for the 1980 five-month Literacy Crusade. The Crusade was the central political project of the first year, a unique blend of ideological consolidation and the social ideals for which the war had been fought. There would be no shortage of attacks from the West on the Crusade's overtly politicising purpose, yet its profound humanitarian content was the perfect instrument for putting Western sympathy for the Revolution on the line. 'We know who our natural allies are,' a senior figure in the Crusade remarked candidly. In

otiier

we

know who

we need. The biggest single threat from the north. If that looks like happening, all the left-wing support in the world won't prevent it. But with friends like well, that would be a different Mexico, the EEC, even in the USA itself 'But

we

face

also

is

the friends are that

military intervention

.

.

.

story .'^

99% of the $20 million in aid for the Crusade came from USAID providing the single largest donation of more than $2

In the event, fully

the West, with

La Pre nsa was jubilant

at the generosity of the capitalist deep satisfaction. The friendships built up so painstakingly in the fight against Somoza had survived remarkably the first year of popular revolution, and the wisdom of Nicaragua's foreign policy has been to accept foreign support from whatever source, while remaining lucid about the widely differing motives which underlie each

million.^ V^hile

world, the

FSLN

also

had reason

for

country's solidarity and turning them to Nicaragua's advantage.

300

^

Consolidating the Revolution Nicaragua's spectacular entry into the Non-Aligned

Movement

at its sixth

August 1979 provided many of the keys to the new foreign policy. Speaking on behalf of the Junta, Daniel Ortega had this to say:

summit

in

Havana

in

We

are entering the

we

see the broadest organisation of the Third

Non-Aligned Movement because in this movement World states that are playing an important role and exercise a growing influence in the international sphere, in the struggle of people against imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, racism - including Zionism - and every form of oppression. Because they are for active peaceful coexistence, against the existence of military blocs and alliances, for restructuring international relations on an honourable basis, and are for the establishment of a

new

international

economic order.

In the course of his speech, Ortega went on to express Nicaraguan solidarity with the liberation of Grenada, Iran, Kampuchea and Uganda in 1979. He demanded US abandonment of the Guantanamo base in Cuba, Puerto Rican

independence, Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal Zone, independence for Belize and stated Nicaragua's commitment to the reunification of Korea

and the withdrawal of American troops, and the treaties.

Among

ratification of the

SALT

II

countries fighting for their liberation, he singled out Nicara-

guan support for POLISARIO, SWAPO, the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe and the frontline states, and the self-determination of East Timor. As well as paying tribute to the support of Castro, President Rodrigo Carazo of Costa Rica and President Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico, ex-President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela and General Omar Torrijos of Panama, he reserved special words of solidarity for the PLO and the people of Vietnam, reiterating Nicaragua's recognition of the

Government of People's Kampuchea.

With the exception of Castro's visit on 19 July 1980, no foreign leader has been given the same reception as Vietnam's Pham Van Dong the previous September. With monumental portraits of Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara flanking those of Sandino on the front of the National Palace, the welcome for the Vietnamese premier reflected the close identification of the FSLN with the Vietnamese struggle. There were indeed many parallels: the decades of suffering under foreign aggression, the maturity of a guerrilla strategy in which the Sandinistas frequently cited General Giap as an inspiration. Like the Vietnamese Revolution, the Sandinista victory was above all that of a people standing alone, with powerful international solidarity but little direct foreign assistance. In both countries, the heroism of the people became a byword. And in both revolutions the leadership acted with great pragmatism, suspending the language of Marxism in favour of a nationalist struggle which would incorporate the broadest sectors of a 'patriotic bourgeoisie', following a flexible blend of national liberation and socialisation according to the circumstances prevailing at critical moments of the struggle. In rejecting decades of US domination, the Nicaraguans also rejected any international policies which would tie them directly to another power bloc, and must have

301

The People felt a

in

Power

Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese Way. Like Ho, the under criticism for taking a firmer hand against the than against bourgeois dissidents. And like Ho, they saw the early

strong attachment to

Frente soon found ultra-left

tactics

itself

of the Far Left as a serious miscalculation of national conditions

specifically the all-important tactical alliance with the private sector

—

—

and a mechanical reading of revolutionary theory which took no account of the need to Vnake haste slowly'. Nicaragua's close ties with Cuba have made crucial votes in the United Nations the object of intense scrutiny from the Right. While voting with the Socialist bloc in recognition

of the Heng Samrin Government

in

Phnom Penh,

from condemning Soviet action in Afghanistan. During a high-level mission to Moscow on the other hand, Soviet leaders were reportedly irritated by a speech from Tomas Borge insisting on Nicaragua's independence on the Afghanistan issue although the meeting yielded a fraternal joint statement from the FSLN and CPSU. In subsequent weeks the Sandinista media were at pains to analyse the Afghan situation to the Nicaraguan people, and a major article by Comandante Bayardo Arce in Barricada drew a firm distinction between Soviet intervention and imperialism, while roundly condemning US support for 'counter-revolutionNicaragua abstained

in successive votes

,

ary forces'.

Much

internal

and external

Government has Cuban and Soviet involvement in the

hostility to the Sandinista

predictably centred on supposed

country's reconstruction. In February 1980, a secret Congressional session to study a proposed

American

aid package of

$75 million heard CIA evidence

of 'Cuban-Soviet hegemony' in Nicaragua, and a major

on the

—

if

comical

—

condi-

by the right-wing Republican lobby was that not a cent should reach schools staffed by volunteer Cuban teachers. Among the wilder rumours which have circulated, backed to the hilt by Robelo since his resignation and avidly consumed by La Prensa, have been stories of Cuban missile bases in Esteli and 'Ontelemar' [sic] ,^ Soviet spy ships disguised as trawlers to monitor American submarine movements off the Caribbean coast. Lfl Prensa has gone as far as to allege that the Sandinista Police carry out political arrests on instructions from the Soviet Embassy in Managua. The residual prestige of La Prensa and the enduring anti-Communism bred by tion placed

Somoza mean

that

aid

some of

these stories have gained credibility

among

the

people, a fact not lost on the Nicaraguan Right.

Real or imagined Cuban assistance has also bruised one or two of Nicaragua's regional friendships. The Panamanian Government, which saw itself as a crucial

source of military

know-how

to the

FSLN,

has been

offended by the role assumed by Cuban advisers since the victory.^ And domestic events in the Andean Pact countries, which were such a valuable source of dipolomatic support during the insurrection, have weakened

To add to the July 1980 coup in Bolivia and the steady rightwards lurch of the Christian Democrat government in Venezuela, relations with Colombia (never the most reliable of allies) have touched bottom. The reason has been Nicaragua's assertion Nicaragua's backing from Latin American states.

302

Consolidating the Revolution

of territorial rights over a 200-mile ocean shelf and its refusal to recognise the Barcenas-Meneses-Esguerra Treaty signed during the United States occupation in the 1920s, which ceded the Caribbean islands of San Andres, Providencia,

Roncador, Serrana and Quitasueno to Colombia. Nicaraguan claims to the been widely depicted in the Colombian press as part of a Cuban

islands have

strategy to establish military bases in the Caribbean.

Perhaps the major lesson learnt by Nicaragua in handling its friendships with the West has been that the capitalist world is no monolith. At the level of world powers, there are fundamental strategic rifts between West Germany

and the United States. At the level of aspirations for Latin American leaderis intense competition between Mexico and Venezuela. Exploiting these contradictions has helped the consolidation of the Nicaraguan Revolution as the four countries jockey for position in Central America. To the West German SPD Government, Washington policy towards Central America under the Carter Administration was fatally flawed. The SPD saw clearly that neither the State Department's advocacy of cautious reformism (but excluding the Left), nor the Pentagon/National Security Council line of arming traditionally friendly military regimes was capable of bringing long-term stability to the region. Bonn. is also convinced that the events of the last two years have broken US economic domination of Central America. More than any other Western government, German foreign policy is shaped by a pragmatic need for foreign markets, and stability coupled with increased local purchasing power could make Central America an attractive target for West German exports. The Bonn-Washington division, ship, there

which began with SPD crisis

political

and financial support

for the

FSLN, reached SPD

point over El Salvador, culminating in glacial meetings between

Hans Jurgen Wischnewski, and the State Department, after which Secretary of State Edmund Muskie ruled out any possibility of joint US-West German policy in the area. West Germany would be strenuously opposed to any direct military intervention in Central America. For Nicaragua, the public divisions on strategy and the conflicts of economic interest within the capitalist world are a useful defence, especially as they are likely to heighten during a Reagan presidency. At the same time, the FSLN recognises that there is no monolithic Social Democratic intention towards Central America, an analysis which appears to have escaped Washington, which treats the West German Government, the SPD and the Socialist International as a single indivisible force encouraging Central American Marxism. The FSLN and El Salvador's Coordinadora Revolucionaria de Masas (CRM) came as observers to the Socialist International regional conference on Latin America in April 1980 and saw resolutions condemning the USA over El Salvador and Puerto Rico, as well as heated debates between the Latin American and West European Social Democrats on trading policies and the relationship between the Socialist International and Latin American communist parties. The principal split within the movement on Nicaragua is between the West Germans and Portugal's Mario Soares - which is ironic, in view of Germany's role after the Vice-President,

303

The People

Power

in

Portuguese Revolution, but consistent with West German pragmatism. Bour-

democracy offered stability against a volatile revolution in Portugal; no Democratic solution is plausible in Nicaragua. Soares's unsuccessful attempt to steer Robelo's right-wing MDN into the Socialist International was geois

Social

the culmination of a long personal crusade to avoid the 'Cubanisation' of

To

who had

Managua only two weeks purpose of massive Social Democratic aid was clear. Soares may also have grasped a contradiction in West German policy not lost on the right wing of the SPD, that a socialist Nicaragua.

Soares,

led an SI mission to

after the Sandinista victory, the political

revolution might not in fact create the favourable markets required by

German

capital. Within the SPD, as within the Socialist International as a whole, there are clear distinctions between the foreign policy position of the Government and the ideological sympathies of the party's left wing, and indeed the fear that this tendency might become dominant in German support for Nicaragua alarmed foreign policy advisers in Washington. The SPD's Friedrich Ebert Foundation has been the most visible face of German Social Democratic involvement in Nicaragua, channelling aid and technical assistance and sponsoring a highly publicised Conference of Support and Solidarity in February 1980. The platform given to the Salvadorean Left

and the

radical tone of the conference resolutions

who was among

the participants.^ For the

FSLN,

must have worried Soares, the significance of the con-

ference was in maintaining the active friendship of democratic governments

who had

lent their weight to the

anti-Somoza struggle. Sergio Ramirez

of the Junta traced their support back to the previous year's seventeenth

meeting of the OAS: 'It was in those days of struggle that a new kind of political behaviour emerged. That framework of democratic support for the Nicaraguan Revolution made us realise that we could form a bloc of democratic unity opposed to the interests of imperialism ... We are a test case for Latin America. We are well aware of the role we are playing.'^ Turning to countries closer to home, the notion of an informal antiimperialist bloc is nowhere more vital than in the Caribbean. Prominent visitors to the July 1980 anniversary celebrations were Prime Ministers Maurice Bishop of Grenada and George Price of Belize, reinforcing the unity of English and Spanish -speaking radical governments in the region against US efforts to subvert the Left in the wake of the Grenadian and Nicaraguan victories. The FSLN's close ties with the Caribbean are also a vital pillar of domestic policy, bringing the alienated minorities of the Atlantic Coast behind the Revolution by emphasising that Nicaragua's cultural identity is not only Central American and Latin, but Caribbean and Black.^ Nicaragua

is

also a test case for the regional leadership aspirations oi

Mexico and Venezuela, the of

its

region's

two

biggest oil -suppliers. Mexico,

proud

record as the only Latin American country not to break diplomatic

relations with revolutionary

Cuba, continues to mix

radical foreign policy

rhetoric with the ruling PRI's history of internal repression and corruption.

Venezuela,

in shifting

Herrera Campins,has

304

smartly to the Right under

made

COPEl

President Luis

overt attempts to interfere in Nicaraguan affairs

Consolidating the Revolution

$20 million in aid as a direct bargaining counter for Christian Democrat inclusion in an expanded Junta) and has acted in concert with Washington over Central American policy, notably in giving outright support for the beleaguered military -Christian Democrat Junta in El Salvador. Both countries represent an essential source of Central American oil supplies, and Mexican oil wealth, in fact, lies close to the heart of Washington's dilemma. The United States cannot afford to antagonise Mexico for fear of losing access to the oil. But can it tolerate Mexico's public demonstrations of friendship with Castro, the FSLN and the Salvadorean Left, if this is likely to lead to Washington's ultimate nightmare of the Central American revolution reaching the oilfields on Mexico's southern border? For Nicaragua, the joint Mexican-Venezuelan scheme for subsidised oil exports to the region, by undermining economic dependency on either power, is a neat resolution of the contradiction between Venezuela's regional interventionism and Mexico's 'Hands off Central America' posture, and keeps both friendships alive. The best evidence of the importance of these friendships to Nicaragua as a defence against intervention is the coverage given to them by the Sandinista media. Visits during 1980 by Herrera Campins and Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo were front-page splashes surrounded by lavish protocol; they were given as prominent treatment as relations with Cuba, El Salvador and the Socialist bloc. If these friendships prove durable — and there is every reason to suppose they will — 'intervention from the north' will not prove (offering

easy.^

Overcoming the Ideology of Somocismo Arce's article on the

Democracy

myth of Soviet imperialism and

press coverage of Social

are attempts to strengthen public perception of the

policy. Widespread acceptance o{ La Prensa scare stories

there

is still

new

shows how

to go in educating people to understand Nicaragua's

foreign far

new

political

on the Managua airport road still read 'Welcome to Nicaragua: Another Diners Club Country'. Taxi-drivers grumble that Tomas Borge wants to implant Cuban-style Communism in Nicaragua. When asked what Cuban Communism is, they confess they have no idea beyond that bred into them by Somoza. Other Nicaraguans will frequently say: 'There is no trace of Communism here, just Sandinismo. Everybody is Sandinista here. We've never known what democracy was, so how can we know what direction. Signs

Socialism

is?'

Somocista repression was not only maintained by force and coercion, but by ideological control and an occasional necessary dose of populism. While the votes of peasants were bought in what the Frente refer to as 'elecciones de guaro y nacatamales\^^ the capitalist values expressed for decades by the media and the acquiescence of the formal opposition parties have left a people notoriously hostile to Socialism. During the pre-Revolutionary period, as well as creating dual power structures, the FSLN developed a parallel

305

The People

in

Power

and cultural hegemony which definitively broke the legitimacy state. Once ideological consensus had been challenged, it crumbled irreversibly until Somoza's only means of control was violence. Traditional *soft' propaganda was no longer effective. In its place came crude and rabid anti-Communism, pitted against the Frente's own propaganda which revealed the economic and political essence of Somocismo. The old consciousness had been destroyed, but the task remained to build the new mass consciousness, which could only develop partially and unevenly in the climate of a revolutionary war. An FSLN militant gave this view of the problem of political consciousness: ideological

of the Somoza

Tell a

Nicaraguan factory worker

-

as

much

in the

CST

as in the other

labour unions - that we are building a system in which workers will control the means of production, in which income will be redistributed to benefit the proletariat and he will say Ves — that's what we want.' Call it Socialism and he will tell you he doesn't want any part of it. Tell a peasant

more acute -

—

in

whom

the problem of political education

is

even

about destroying the power of the big latifundistas, that the agrarian reform and the literacy campaign will

that the revolution

is all

incorporate the peasantry into political decisions, show

how

the

Council of State and the mass organisations are giving that person voice at every level of government, and he will be enthusiastic, he

a will

recognise that this is right and just. Mention the word Communism and he will run a mile. Or ask most Nicaraguans what they think of Cuba, and they will tell you the truth — that the Cuban people are our greatest friends, that Cuba is defending our Revolution in countless ways, that they know someone whose kid is studying on the Isla de la Juventud [Island of Youth, where Nicaraguan children are studying in an international school alongside children from Ethiopia, Mozambique etc.] Remind them that Cuba is a socialist state, and that still presents a contradiction. But the important thing is that it makes them reflect on their prejudices, it makes them challenge mentally the fixed image .

they have a Cuba with the reality of Cuban solidarity which they can all around them.^^

see

own comment to the crowd on 19 July that 'you remind much of our own people being here, we Cubans feel as if we were in our own country' is no mere platitude. It is a suggestion which may have a profound effect in breaking down ideological fears and ignorance. NevertheIn this sense, Fidel's

me

so

less,

the paradox of

.

Cuban

.

.

solidarity

is

that

its,

most

visible thrust

-

the

— has

been directed at the provision of volunteer teachers and health workers areas of greatest social deprivation, the most remote rural areas and the nonSpanish -speaking Atlantic Coast, where the level of political consciousness is at its lowest. The natural resistance of the Atlantic Coast population to a 'Spanish' revolution has at times been aggravated by the influx of Cubans.

The work of Cuban

306

advisers in the fishing industry, or

Cuban technicians

Consolidating the Revolution in a

Miskito radio station, have been seen locally as 'jobs for foreign

nists' in a

region of acute

unemployment. Fearful of

commu-

aggressive atheism,

some

deeply religious older people have been unwilling to receive treatment from Cuban doctors. There are not many of these cases, but with each one a new

rumour spreads and

is

eagerly fuelled

by

local

Somocista and right-wing

groups. In this atmosphere, local discontent with the initially slow pace of social a local

change has occasionally reached flashpoint over the Cuban issue, among population which may feel alienated, politically and culturally, from

the Revolution.

One such

flashpoint

came with

riots in Bluefields in

October

1980. The immediate spark was trivial — most said it was over the appointment of a Cuban fishing boat captain in a town where regular employment in the fishing

industry

is

rare.

But whatever the cause, within hours the

dispute had been exploited by Somocistas, ultra-leftists, Conservative

businessmen, separatist groups and common criminals. It took the Frente three days to calm the town, avoiding military repression of an already explosive situation. The dilemma was an acute one: the FSLN decided that a large military presence was the only remedy, but transporting troops in

were flown

capital risked further local resentment. EPS troops but they were handpicked and only left Managua after pro-

from the

in,

on the political background to events in Bluefields. The FSLN's attempts to bring about the economic and political inte-

tracted briefing

gration of the Atlantic Coast have often been resented. 'They have a poster which says "The Atlantic Coast: the awakening giant",' said one local '^^ resident. 'But we don't need them to wake us up — we're awake already. After a year, the Revolution has made little headway in the region, a dilemma worsened by the difficulty in locating well-trained FSLN cadres with an awareness of local cultural patterns and the need to move at a different pace from the rest of the country. So long as the Revolution fails to consolidate its support on the Costa Atlantica, the area remains a fertile ground for counter-revolutionary activity. The Frente pins much of its hopes on two things: the ethnic organisation MISURASATA, which is represented on the Council of State, and the drive to bring the area into the Revolution via the east, by building friendships with Grenada, Jamaica and other Caribbean nations, and stressing Nicaragua's identity as a Caribbean country with cultural traditions distinct from those of the Pacific Coast majority. MISURASATA originally had difficulty gaining acceptance from the other mass organisations, but is now gaining ground through its interventions in the Council of State and its organisational capacity among groups such as the mineworkers. Like the other mass organisations, MISURASATA 's main difficulty is the political education of its own membership. A CDS activist from Managua described the way this affected the early growth of the CDSs: 'One of the major difficulties is the lack of companeros with a clear political vision. As the committees were formed spontaneously, some people who were not up to the job and others who were simply opportunists began to manipulate certain

CDSs

for their

own

purposes.

'^^

307

The People

in

Power

The major successes of the Frente's

early

propaganda work have been to

teach the political independence of the working class from the state, and the

independence of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie. These basic gains by the mass organisations have driven bourgeois ideology into a corner, without using explicitly Marxist terminology, but they have not destroyed it. The damaging legacy of Somocismo is seen less in the overt acceptance of class

than

capitalist ideology

in the survival

of patterns of apathy,

a reluctance

on the part of the workers and peasants to take independent and militant initiatives. The initial purpose of Sandinista propaganda was to consolidate the anti-imperialism of the mass movement, to deal with the basics of Sandinismo, not to

instil

obedience to leadership positions, but rather to

stimulate creative analysis by the working class of

its

own

history so as to

provide a basis for independent class action. The early stages were difficult,

and leadership cadres found themselves frequently frustrated by the people's reticence in articulating their demands. The CST, for example was criticised for not demanding ENABAS food distribution points in the factories, and for remaining silent about the need for effective consumer-protection laws. But, as the FSLN admitted in subsequent self-criticism, this tentative ,

early behaviour reflected the limitations political

—

perhaps necessary ones

—

of

initial

education and propaganda work.

Cupertino Perez, a peasant from the

Comuna

Julio Buitrago in Leon,

described the content of early political education: 'Quite often in the after-

noons or evenings, the commune secretary has been giving us political talks, about how terrible it was to live under Somocismo, how long Somocismo lasted, or about the thought of Sandino,and the importance of the Revolution now.' It was often very basic, with the twin dangers that the propaganda o{ consolidation would cease to be in step with the demands of the Revolution and the future needs of the working class and the ever-present risk of triumphalist propaganda leading to mass passivity in the euphoric early months.'"* One of the negative results was a delay in restarting production, with the working class unsure of what was expected of it and what it was capable of. In some cases, little explanation was given of actions taken by government.

The mood changed abruptly with

the publication of Plan 80 and an intenpropaganda effort around the tasks of economic recovery Barricada stressed the need in an important editorial which was also an appeal to the mass organisations:

sive

.

publishing front-page news about the inauguration of a new production complex, for example, our treatment of the story has too often been confined to political speechmaking at the expense of hard facts. There has been too little analysis of the participation of the workers, their aspirations, how they organise. The same thing happens with our support for the campaign against bureaucracy, which has been

When

inadequate, because solid examples and proposals for alternative action are lacking.

308

We

believe that this self-criticism by Barricada should act

Consolidating the Revolution as a guide to Sandinista militants,

We

mass organisations and propagandists.

appeal to them to intensify their efforts to strengthen the

New forms of organisation, propaganda propaganda of production and mobilisation and new revolutionary attitudes to our work are essential if we are to keep moving forward, and we should open the debate without delay. A political debate rooted in reality, in hard .

facts.

.

.

*^

The development of the weekly nev/sp2iper,Poder Sandinista,

first

published in mid-October by the FSLN's Secretaria Nacional de Propaganda

y Educacion Politica (SENAPEP), became crucial to political orientation. Its first issue was launched in the middle of a two-month series of 'Political and Trade Union Formation' seminars run by the CST, and it shared the seminars'

aim of encouraging a critical dialogue which would strengthen the links between the Frente and the mass orgSLnissLtions. Poder Sandinista centred its attention on propaganda around production and the role of the mass organisations in the state. Starting from basics, it provided a dictionary of production which gave workers definitions of basic political concepts such as social class, profit, means of production and surplus value. In March, in the midst of a national debate about economism and working-class strategy, it tackled the central issue of trade union demands in a revolutionary society:

The

historical

components of the

relationship

between

labour have always been framed in four stages: (a) the

guaranteed purchasing

capital

demand

minimum wage; (b) the demand for a real wage power; (c) the demand for a social wage (which

and for a

with the state

guarantees in the form of services, education, health care, housing etc.)

and for improvements

in

working conditions; (d) the demand for

extending workers' participation

in the decision-making process, both and outside the workplace. Traditionally in capitalist societies, these demands have tended to be lodged in this order of priority, but *^ today they should be the other way round.

inside

The Propaganda and

Political

Education Secretariat

set itself three distinct

functions: agitation and propaganda, publications, and political education.

Agitprop covered the intensive use of the Sandinista media (Barricada, Poder Sandinista, Kadio Sandino, the Sistema Sandinista de Television, etc.) The visual media have made a concerted attack on ingrained cultural values as well as laying the foundations of a

new

ideology. Legislation prohi-

and television advertisements for tobacco and alcohol. Although Sandinista TV is virtually obliged by a shortage of material to continue using some US-produced programmes, there is a ban on all those glorifying crime or involving propaganda for the US armed forces, as well as children's programmes based on 'super-hero' images. Sandinista publications concentrated at first on the basic writings of Sandino, Fonseca and members of the FSLN National Directorate, and brief bits all sexist advertising

309

The People

in

Power

biographies of 'Heroes and Martyrs of the Revolution', the latter as part of a sustained campaign to honour the memory of those who died in combat,

whose

lives

provide examples for the working class to emulate. But now, with

SENAPEP has moved on to most important works of Marx, Lenin and Che Guevara. Finally, work on political education covers the organisation of cadre schools and cooperation with the ATC and CST in their independent educational work. The ATC runs five-day courses for peasant activists at the Escuela Piquin Guerrero, and the CST regular seminars and a trade union radio school Habla la CST ('The CST Speaks'). There is an evident tension here between the dynamic of national unity and the rhythm dictated by the need to raise the theoretical level of FSLN militants and build a Sandinista Party. Businessmen who see CST study groups analysing pamphlets by Lenin are more than ever convinced that their days are numbered. The first anniversary of the Revolution was a time of the need for intensive theoretical cadre training,

editions of the

growing ideological struggle, with the Right claiming that the systematically anti-capitalist drift of mass education work was actively contradicting the commitment to national unity. After the propaganda of consolidation in the final

months of 1979, and the propaganda of production

in

1980, the use of

Marxist-Leninist study tools in party building from mid-1980 on bourgeoisie's favourite phrase, evidence of the Frente 'revealing

is,

its

in tlie

true

identity'.

But the lack of adequate cadres must be solved urgently. Many of the

FSLN's most experienced barrio organisers

— were

militants

—

trade unionists, peasant leaders,

killed in the insurrection. In

government, too

many

young Sandinista militants lack administrative and technical skills, while at the same time too many technicians lack political consciousness. The battle against bureaucracy in

government

is

as

much

a reflection

of these

working habits. Although it is correct to draw a distinction between the formal executive arm of government and the other emerging forms of popular democracy, the fact remains that the FSLN must ceaselessly monitor the performance of the executive from within, if it is to fulfil efficiently the function ascribed to it by Bayardo Arce as an 'instrument for promoting the historic project of the working classes'. This means two things: having Sandinista militants present as capable administrators at every level of government, and transforming deficiencies as of the survival of Somocista

as

many

administrators as possible into Sandinista militants.

In the mass organisations, meanwhile, the battle for class consciousness

and independent action is slowly being won. The growing convergence between mass organisation initiatives and state policy means that the ove, reliance on leadership intervention is being reduced. The critical phase here was roughly from November 1979 to February of the following year. As the National Directorate shut itself away for discussions on Plan 80, the trade union movement momentarily faltered. Ultra-left groups like the MAP-FO and the Partido Comunista began to make headway. When the leadership came back into circulation at the end of the year, its members

310

Consolidating the Revolution

promptly undertook extensive tours of the country. In the rash of industrial two months of 1980, Borge intervened to resolve a Managua construction workers' strike, Ruiz to head off Frente Obrero activity in the San Antonio sugar refinery, and Nunez to ratify the factory takeover at the El Caracol food-processing plant. The first steps were taken towards the unification of the trade union movement. These incidents are now less frequent and interventions by leaders less necessary as each plant builds its own cadres capable of identifying the class interests of the workers and defending them against the aggression of the bourgeoisie and the ultraconflicts in the first

left.

Cultural Insurrection:

The Literacy Crusade'^

'It is only possible for literacy to have real meaning in a country which going through a revolutionary process. (Paulo Freire)

is

'

Cuba took two years

to launch

its

campaign against

illiteracy.

The

Nicaraguans began their National Literacy Crusade, described by Bayardo

Arce

as 'a strategic task to consolidate

after the Sandinista victory.

Of all

our Revolution', barely eight months

the early exercises in political education,

was without doubt the most important. For two weeks before Var communiques' from sixteen departamentos had declared one village after another 'territories free from illiteracy', until the Crusade's planners were able to announce the final results: 406,056 newly literate Nicaraguans, slashing the country's illiteracy rate from 50% to a mere the Crusade

the 23 August rally,

13%.

more remote rural areas of the north and east, the had carried out their task in the face of formidable obstacles, not only insects, malaria, dysentery and the monotonous rice and beans diet of the peasant population, but sniper attacks from the remnants of the National Guard, who carried out the threat they had broadcast from their clandestine radio station Volveremos (We will return) in Honduras. Counterrevolutionary attacks left seven brigadistas dead. Another forty-nine died from road accidents, drowning and disease. Remarkably only 4% of the 85,000 teachers dropped out during the five-month campaign, most of them in the first few weeks. The Frente was well aware that in addition to the physical hazards involved, the brigadistas had been working with the sector of the population most vulnerable to ideological attack, peasants who in many cases were reluctant to cooperate with the agrarian reform and the Especially in the

brigadistas

,

ATC

because they feared Somoza would return to take reprisals against those

who had

supported the Revolution. In his speech of welcome to the returning

People's Literacy

It is

Army (EPA), Humberto

the duty of

peasants

who

Ortega noted:

you young Sandinista guerrillas to prevent our out there where no news reaches them, from being

live

311

The People

in

Power

confused by the reactionary bourgeoisie and the counterYou are the main thread which binds us to those revolution peasants. It is the responsibility of each one of you to ensure that every campesino remains a Sandinista because it is out there that .

.

.

.

the counter-revolution moves, the vatives

The

first

whom -

or

and oligarchs, with

.

.

mummies,

the clapped-out Conser-

their talk of farcical elections.

to be taught, however were the soldiers of the EPS, 30% of some 2,500 - were illiterate. In the new armed forces, literacy

by Carlos Carrion, the FSLN army we want every comrade to be able to read and write, so that he or she can understand all our country's problems, and understand that the army is not a separate distinct institution isolated from the struggles of the masses.'*^ Seven weeks later, on 24 March, the rest of the country began to learn. The language and style of the crusade was military — 'war communiques', 'literacy guerrillas' and 'battle fronts'. Beginning so soon after the insurrection, this was no accident. Many of the teenage members of the EPA had themselves fought, and their power of mobilisation and discipline drew heavily on stilL fresh memories of the armed struggle. The EPA was organised into six battle

had the

delegate

specific political function spelled out

to the Literacy Crusade: 'In the people's

fronts identical to those of the

FSLN

during the war, with each sub -divided

The basic unit, the squadron, was composed of thirty teachers of the same age and sex, drawn wherever possible from the same school or college. The main force of the EPA was supported by 3,000 part-time Workers' Literacy Militias (MO A) and 30,000 more Urban Literacy Militias (GUA) who taught people in city homes and markets. Like into brigades, columns and squadrons.

the regular military forces of the EPS, they shared a single purpose: to create and defend popular power. The logistics of moving 60,000 teenage teachers around a mountainous country with only a rudimentary communications system were complex, and the task — like that of protecting the brigadistas in the field, sustaining their morale and integrating midJle-cbss urban students into a wholly unfamiliar peasant environment — fell largely to the mass organisations. With 60% of the brigadistas female, the women's movement AMNLAE took on a major role, giving the teachers support in the field through the Comites de Madres (Mothers' Committees). The Juventud Sandinista and the teachers' association, ANDEN, bore the brunt of mobilising brigadistas at the outset, and the CST took charge of organising the Workers' Literacy Militias. The ATC looked after food, accommodation and transport in isolated communities linked only by river or horse-trail, and in the northern departamentos of Madriz, Nueva Segovia and Jinotega they set up local ENABAS stores where there were problems of food distribution. The ubiquitous CDSs drew up a national plan of logistical support for the Crusade and provided the basic forum for dialogue with local communities. As for communications and security, military metaphor became a military reality, with responsibility shared between the EPS and local units of the newly created Sandinista

312

Consolidating the Revolution People's Militias. At the level of national planning, each of the popular organisations occupied a seat on the National Literacy Commission. together, these practical proofs of the capacity of the mass

Taken

movement were

one of the central triumphs of the Crusade. Another was the political education of the brigadistas themselves. Although their initial motivation was never in doubt, the Literacy Crusade has won an entire generation of Nicaraguan youth over to a clear understanding of the Revolution, and — as the FSLN would have wished it — not through propaganda but through practical experience. This response from Ivan, a 17 -year old brigadista

It's

not

from Masaya, was

question of making

a

part in the Crusade.

It's

characteristic:

a decision ...

more

I

didn't 'decide' to take

like an obligation.

I

mean, how can you

believe in the Revolution and not join the literacy brigades? Last year in the insurrection I

I

took up

a

don't see any real difference.

country.

means

I

things.

When

It's all

it's

an exercise book, but

part of the war to liberate the

want to go into the countryside too, and learn what

itt

to be a peasant in Nicaragua, to get rid of this stupid idea that

here's the

most on

gun; this year

town and

We're

all

there's the country,

in this

and they're two different

Revolution together.'^

they evaluate their experience in retrospect, the brigadistas dwell their relationship

with the campesinos and the

initial

problems of

acceptance. These are constant themes of the field-diary which each teacher

kept and a frequent topic of discussion

in the regular

Saturday evaluation

meetings which the literacy squadrons held throughout the

five

months

of the Crusade. The urban-rural mistrust fostered by Somocismo produced initial reserve in

many

peasant areas, at times bordering on open class

antagonism. This was overcome by the astute

way

in

which the

FSLN

threw

the Literacy Crusade into the debate over production. Opportunistic right-

wing propaganda against the Crusade, often from those who were actively sabotaging the production effort, took the line of 'Surely the government's priority should be to devote resources to production.

The Frente's response was

to

What

is

the point of

we can't give them enough to eat?''^^ draw the human resources for the campaign

teaching peasants to read and write

if

from economically unproductive sectors (school and university students), while the EPA and MOA programmed their classes for evenings and weekends to avoid clashing with working hours. Brigadistas threw themselves for the rest of the day into the productive activities of the peasantry — planting and harvesting, care of livestock, milking, local handicrafts

—

arfd

provided the

temporary labour force which did not interfere with job creation programmes for the unemployed. The brigadistas' efforts — often more enthusiastic than competent at using the long-bladed machete or baking corn tortillas — helped break down the resistance of peasant families, and by August close personal bonds had developed between teachers and learners. The potential of the Crusade itself to relieve unemployment was country with

a

313

The People

in

also grasped.

Power

Of

the equipment used in the

programme, only hurricane lamps

could not be produced locally. In Esteli for

example we produce the rucksacks which the brigadistas

we can

use to carry their teaching materials. Small things which

turn

out cheaply and at low cost to avoid unnecessary imports. Through the

AMNLAE and the Social Welfare Ministry, we have managed to Production Collective which has given work to 90 unemployed local women. So far we've produced 15,000 rucksacks, as well as uniforms for the brigadistas and the ordinary clothes which we sell here at work of

set

up

a

controlled prices through the People's Clothing Store

.^^

Right-wing attacks on the Crusade were clearly directed at the political

content of the teaching materials, and motivated by a fear that political

five

months of

education would bring the peasantry solidly behind the Revolution

and render them impervious to bourgeois counter-propaganda. Alfonso Robelo himself, at that time still a Junta member, led tlie assault, which gained credibility because it came from within the government. In a speech to MDN members at Chinandega on 1 1 March, he attacked the Crusade: *We should not be talking of literacy which can be manipulated to domes'^^ ticate the minds of the marginal population: that would be criminal. After his resignation, the tone of the attacks became more hysterical. The

Crusade was now accused of being an instrument of Communist indoctrination. Robelo, meanwhile, had sent his own teenage children to study in the

USA. These attacks found fertile ground among many bourgeois families, who were reluctant to grant parental permission for their children to participate. As a result, only one-third of the brigadistas came from middle-class homes. Parents who did comply, although initially nervous about the overtly politicising aims of the campaign, overcame their qualms through first-hand experience of the Crusade in action and their own first contact with the realities

of peasant

life.

Again, the planners' astute reading of the situation

vindicated the FSLN's belief that the Revolution had to sensitive to the people's political limitations,

and could

move

still

at a pace

win over

size-

able sectors of the middle class. Unrestricted parental access to the brigadistas

was allowed. Some made regular weekend visits to the more accessible areas; others undertook ten-day treks into the mountains by jeep, mule and canoe, and returned home transformed by what they had witnessed. The educational materials which so alarmed the bourgeoisie were the twenty-three chapters of the literacy primer El Amanecer del Pueblo (Dawn of the People). The teaching methodology embodied many of the theories of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, who had spent a week in discussions with the Crusade's planners. It was based on a creative discovery of words

and oral dialogue through the use of photographs illustrating the principal themes of Nicaraguan history and rooted in the experience of the learners. Freire 's 'generative' words were contained in key sentences which carried

314

Consolidating the Revolution the political message of the Revolution: 'Sandino, Guide

(Chapter

1);

'The Popular Masses

Made

of the Revolution'

the Insurrection' (Chapter 5); 'The

Defend the Revolution' (Chapter 6); Promote Production and Watch over the Revolutionary Process' (Chapter 8); 'Agrarian Reform Will Restore to the People the Production of the Land for the People' (Chapter 10); 'Our Democracy is the Power of the Organised People' (Chapter 2 ) and so on. The photograph accompanying Chapter 10 is typical. It shows men, women and children harvesting maize. One man wears a cap with the name INRA; another a baseball cap with a picture of Sandino. In practice, this Sandinista Defence Committees

'The Revolutionary Workers Organisations '

1

photograph stimulated thought and discussion on agricultural products, the INRA, the division of agricultural labour between the sexes, child labour, Sandino, the role of the peasantry. The training of the brigadistas concentrated on their ability to sustain and enrich this dialogue by understanding thoroughly the political concepts involved and enabling the peasant learners to discuss openly their own experience, ideas and opinions accumulated during the years of tlie dictatorship. The deployment of the brigadistas to remote areas and the resources of the mass organisations also allowed the government to achieve results over and above those of the Crusade itself. The most important of these political byproducts were the brigadistas' mv oh QmQWi in the campaign to eradicate malaria, health education and preventive medicine programmes, the search for mineral deposits, archaeological remains; collection of samples of flora and fauna; compilation of Nicaraguan popular culture — songs, poems and folk legends; recovery of the oral history of the war of liberation by means of 2,000 taped interviews with eye-witnesses; and censuses designed to assemble, information on patterns of employment, agricultural resources, and local trade and distribution. After five months of intensive teaching, difficulties of course remained. The illiterate ethnic groups on the Atlantic Coast were not integrated into the first phase of the Crusade. Their turn came on 31 September, and the teaching materials used with the Miskito, Sumo, Rama and black Englishspeaking communities took special regional factors into account. They were the only departure from the Crusade's intention to produce a single, identical primer for use with all social groups, a decision fundamental to the unifying political strategy of the campaign. The delay in bringing literacy to the Atlantic Coast reflected political sensitivity, not neglect. The Atlantic Coast teaching materials, produced with the help of Caribbean literacy experts, were for minorities whose cultural traditions, need for economic integration and often uneasy relationship to the FSLN dictated a more gradual approach. A long term question, and absolutely fundamental, was: how could the government sustain the impetus created over five months of unprecedented progress, and avoid the dangers of dependency on brigadistas whose role could only be temporary? The answer came in the creation of autonomous peasant organisations. The original classes of five or six, or Sandinista Literacy Units, became Popular Education Collectives (CEPs) coordinated role of

315

The People

in

Power

by the campesinos themselves. Initially, the CEPs maintained the reading level of the newly literate and helped slow learners to complete the primer, during a 'sustaining' phase which preceded the October creation of a Vice-Ministry for Adult Education. The permanent programme of adult education has taken up where the Crusade left off. In the words of one of its planners:

The method

is

popular participation, dialogue, education for awareness.

It is

overcoming the contradictions between the people's and the official language. It is equipping people for permanent and universal self-education. It is to weld the education and the organisation '^^ of the masses into one endeavour. To the bourgeois Right, this was all profoundly threatening. As the Crusade ended, the FSLN's National Directorate and the Crusade's coordinator, the Jesuit priest Fernando Cardenal, were inundated with letters of gratitude and commitment from those who had participated as learners. But one letter from a newly literate peasant went addressed to the 'Distinguished Gentlemen of the Democratic Conservative Party, the MDN, the Social Christian Party and the Social Democrat Party' (the latter a small, violently anti-Sandinista right-wing party formed after the Revolution and subsequently disowned by the Socialist International). The letter's message, in rhyme, was simple: reference to history as

Ahora ya se leer, Ahora no me vuelven

(Now

I

it is

lived

.

.

.

a joder.

can read/Now you won't push

me around any

The Dialogue between Marxists and

more.)

Christians

Cardenal's presence as director of the Literacy Crusade, and the massive it by both Catholics and Evangelicals, is only one facet of Church involvement in the Sandinista Revolution. His brother, Ernesto, is Minister of Culture and the Maryknoll priest, Miguel D'Escoto, Foreign Minister. Throughout the mass organisations, especially in the CDS and the ATC, Christian activists hold key positions. In the rural areas as in many urban slums, the Church can be the most important force for legitimising the Revolution. On the remote Atlantic Coast, the dominant Moravian Church is fundamental in mediating between the Frente and a suspicious local population. When the FSLN took power, one of the first public celebrations of victory was a mass officiated at by the Archbishop of Managua, Monsenor Obando y Bravo. The relationship between the Church and the FSLN takes its place along with the alliance with the private sector and the extraordinary range of international friendships as a further unique feature of the Nicaraguan Revolution, and is a priority in the consolidation of

support given to

militant

national unity.

The convergence of Marxism and 316

Christianity

is

explained by particular

Consolidating the Revolution features of Nicaraguan history in the last decade, breaking radically with a

which the Nicaraguan Catholic Church was as loyal an ally of the any in Latin America. In the 1930s, the Bishop of Granada was infamous for publicly blessing the arms of United States Marines setting off to fight Sandino. The change began with the Second Vatican Council, and particularly with the Latin American Bishops' Conference at Medellin, tradition in

ruling class as

Colombia,

in

1968. After Medellin, parish priests, pastoral communities and

even the Catholic hierarchy broke from their long-standing complicity with Somocismo. Nicaragua presented a textbook case of what the new Theology all about: 'a situation of injustice which may be described revolutionary insurrection may be one of institutionalised violence legitimate in the case of evident and prolonged tyranny which dangerously threatens the common good of a country.' The upsurge of post-Medellin thought in Nicaragua coincided with the appointment of a new Archbishop in 1971 and the Managua earthquake and political chaos of the following year.^"* As early as 1970, the first Catholic organisations emerged in which spiritual and class concerns overlapped. In that year, one of the leaders of the Juventud Obrera Catolica (Catholic Workers' Youth), Father Francisco Mejia, was imprisoned and tortured, and the bishops demanded the ex-

of Liberation was

as

.

.

.

communication of those responsible. The most famous affirmation of this new theology was Ernesto Cardenal's contemplative community on the archipelago of Solentiname, founded in the mid-1960s. At first 30 couples settled there, with the group eventually growing to between 800 and 1 ,000. 'Some left early on, believing that Ernesto was teaching Marxism because he was challenging traditional interpretations of the Scriptures and portraying Christ as a proletarian fighting against injustice. '^^ That community, as we have seen, produced the FSLN combatants for the 1977 assault on San Carlos, which Cardenal himself described:

Why

For one reason only; their love for the Kingdom moment came, they fought with great bravery. But they also fought in a Christian way. That dawn in San Carlos, they tried repeatedly to reason with the Guard by loudhailer, so that they could avoid shooting. But the Guard replied with machinegun fire, and very reluctantly they too had to shoot. Alejandro Guevara, one of my community, entered the barracks when there was nobody left but dead and wounded soldiers. He was going to set fire to the barracks, so that there would be no doubt of the success of the attack, but refrained from doing so out of consideration for the wounded -Guardsmen.^^ of

did they do

God

.

.

.

When

it?

the

As Solentiname moved closer to the FSLN, the Catholic hierarchy became more openly anti-Somocista, while never committing itself to the Sandinista alternative. Opening the academic year at the National University, Monsenor Obando y Bravo said: 'A situation of violence is crushing the masses. I make

317

The People

in

Power

between basic or institutional violence rooted in socioeconomic structures, and the violence of the oppressed which it engenders. '^^ None of the bishops had attended the April inauguration of the ruling triumvirate, but instead had issued a pastoral letter condemning the government and declaring Church support for 'a completely new order'. In response, government repression against the Church was stepped up, and Obando y Bravo complained that Somoza was interfering with Archdiocese mail and telephones and condoning break-ins to his offices. After the earthquake, tension between Somoza and the bishops increased, reaching its height during the 1974-77 state of siege, when the National Guard took over chapels in the north as temporary barracks. The bishops also com.plained that in the eastern and northern area where National Guard counter-insurgency operations were concentrated, 'in some villages the military commanders are demanding a special permit for every Catholic religious meeting. '^^ The denunciation was a recognition by the hierarchy of the role in the rural zones, where the Church was traditionally weak, of the new radical grassroots church, the Christian Base Communities (CEB). As the political conflict grew, the Church offered the only sanctuary there was for those fleeing the regime's persecution. Those involved in the CEB were offering an interpretation of the Scriptures encouraging the right of the poor to create independent grassroots organisations to defend their interests, thereby placing the Church inevitably a clear distinction

at the heart

of the class struggle.

In the late 1960s Christian groups in organising the first

made

their first contacts

with the

FSLN

Rural Workers' Committees, and Capuchins began to

organise agricultural cooperatives, which the Frente increasingly saw as a

continuation of the tradition of Sandino in the 1930s. In 1967 these Christian groups were instrumental in bringing together

300 delegates

to the

Congress of Peasants in Matagalpa, and by the end of the decade 300 Ligas Campesinas (Peasant Leagues) and Sindicatos Campesinos (Peasant first

Unions) were functioning. By 1975, a formal and militant break had been made between these radical Catholic groups and the bourgeois opposition. During the state of siege, the Organizaciones Cristianas de Nicaragua complained that La Prensa and the traditional opposition media were in the hands of 'bourgeois sectors opposed to the Somoza dictatorship, but not committed to the true liberation of the Nicaraguan people. '^^ For influential church group*? to make such a distinction was remarkable. Their position also necessarily created tensions with the hierarchy, which never abandoned its links with the bourgeois parties.

Somoza over the 1972 appointment Obando y Bravo and Bishop Salazar of Leon

After the head-on confrontation with

of the triumvirate, Archbishop

expressed their support for the Christian Democrat line, and in August 1974 a strongly

worded

pastoral letter criticising the forthcoming elections and

declaring that 'nobody can be forced to vote in the interests of a particular

group' came in the middle of arrests of bourgeois political leaders including

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro

318

who had

urged an election boycott. The attachment

Consolidating the Revolution

up until Obando y Bravo's flight to 1979 to seek a renegotiated Junta. In late

to a bourgeois solution persisted right

Caracas with

FAO

leaders in July

1977, the Archbishop accepted his role as mediator of the national crisis of the COSEP-INDE lobby, and in the bishops' response

at the instigation

to the crisis the following January the hierarchy, despite

its

apparent

armed struggle, made it clear whose project they favoured: 'Once more we say to our people that we are by your side

legitimisation of

we

are in agreement with those

using civilised means. '^

By

who

are trying to solve the country's

.

.

.

problems

July, their position had hardened, and although

the substance of the bishops'

demands were

still

those of the

FAO,

there

was

common ground

with the FSLN's Minimum Programme for the Catholic hierarchy to be considered part of the Frente's platform of

certainly sufficient

broad national unity. The main demands were these: *

A new live in

which would enable the majority of the people to conditions as regards food, health, education, housing,

socio-political order

human

employment, land, wages and human rights. Genuine rights to form political organisations (outside of the traditional parties), organise trade unions and elect government authorities. * Genuine structural reforms in taxation, land ownership and business, which would redistribute the wealth of the nation more equitably, closing the immense gulf which separated the minority who were rich from the great mass of the poor. * A far-reaching campaign to clean up public administration. * A reorganisation of the armed forces on the basis of serving national — not *

party or personal

—

interests.

*

The resignation of President Somoza.^' These demands from the hierarchy placed the necessary seal on the convergent relationship that had been growing up between the FSLN and the 'base Church' over the previous decade. The CEBs' activity both in rural and urban communities, and actions such as Church occupations in protest against human rights violations, had led the FSLN to look for ways of bringing Marxists and Christians together, and the hierarchy's mediation in the 1974 Chema Castillo raid and the 1978 National Palace attack had - despite the ambiguity of Archbishop Obando y Bravo's position — given the Church a considerable degree of credibility. The FSLN and the 'base Church' had

common areas of political concern through practice and not through theory, because the sections of the Church most directly linked to the working class were challenging the elitism of arrived at a fusion of action, a discovery of

traditional Catholic theology

and presenting arguments about the Scriptures,

Cardenal, in a way directly relevant to the everyday political realities of the people, a democratic and non-doctrinal reading of the Christian

like

faith. ^^ In the

zones which were to become the centres of the popular inCEB were making active preparations for the war, and the dividing line between a CEB and a Comite de Defensa Civil often became hard to draw. Some of the most combative of Managua's barrios orientates, such surrection, the

as

Nicarao and 14 de Septiembre, became virtual no-go areas for the Guardia

319

The People

in

Power

of the Frente and the Church. In Esteli too, full three years before the 1978 insurrection. The Colombian priest, Father Julio Lopez allowed his parish house in the Barrio El Calvario to be used as the Frente's command-post in as the result of the joint efforts

community

organisation was a reality a

September:

The Frente

first

approached

me

and

for organisational

political help in

1975, and I gave it willingly. This barrio was the most militant and best organised in the whole of Esteli, and our comites de base formed the nucleus of what would become the CDCs and then CDSs. We divided Esteli up into 56 zonal committees in preparation for the insurrection, and work was in hand as early as March. Outside the town, we tried to instil revolutionary consciousness in the peasants by taking loudspeaker vans round the valleys playing Carlos Mejia Godoy's 'Misa Campesina'. The local women would bring the communiques of the Frente into Esteli hidden in pots of food, and we priests would then distribute them. Many of the kids here who joined the Frente did so out of their Christian convictions, and the Church continues to play a fundamental

role in the

CDS

today.

^^

Christians constantly strove to find biblical parallels for the

armed

struggle:

'During the NationalGuard assault on the Barrio Riguero in Managua, there was

man who

used to read to the guerrillas each time there was a lull in the from the Book of the Maccabees, to keep their spirits up with stories of the victorious guerrilla war of Judas Maccabee and his brothers against the

an old

fighting

Hellenic imperialist aggressors

who

Christians themselves joined the

being the Spanish missionary of the

became

Many known of them Sacred Heart Caspar Garcia Laviana, who

persecuted the people of Israel.'^

armed

struggle, the best

comandante on the Frente Sur. After working with the Frente for announced his decision to take up arms in December 1977 in an open letter which quoted the papal encyclical 'Populorum Progressio'. He had worked for years in a peasant community. T tried to salvage the situation in a Christian way, in the pacifist sense, trying to lift the people a

three years, he

through their

was

own

resources or those of the government. But

I

realised that

began to get discouraged to see that so much work brought no result because people went on living the same.' The figure of 'Comandante Martin', his nom de guerre, has been a vital example for the FSLN in giving practical proof of the convergence of revolutionary Sandinismo and Christian values. 'Martin' was killed in combat all

this

a lie, a big deception. .

a year after joining the

armed

Since the Revolution, the bility

.

I

.

struggle.

FSLN has continued

to insist on the compati-

of revolutionary and Christian thinking. The Right has attempted to

turn the Church into a propaganda weapon, and the divergence between the

popular Church and the hierarchy has become a the bishops'

first

pastoral letter after the victory

critical ,-^^

was timid and restrained despite expressing 'confidence

320

debate.

The tone of

fearful of losing support, in the

high ideals

Consolidating the Revolution

which have inspired our movement of liberation'. The document also demanded the immediate restoration of press freedom (in other words the reappearance of Z.^ Prensa), a move in fact made by the new Junta within days after a brief spell in which the FSLN's Barricada was the only newspaper in circulation. The people were angered by the bishops' reticeiice, as they were by the complete silence of Pope John Paul II on a war which had cost 50,000 lives; in contrast, the right-wing press in Central America enthusiastically seized on the pastoral letter. A Salvadorean daily promptly headlined 'Church Opposes Nicaraguan Government.' The Frente's own view was put in a document to its first Assembly of Cadres: 'With the Catholic and Evangelical churches we must develop closer relations at the diplomatic level, following a generally cautious policy which seeks to neutralise wherever possible the influence of conservative pastors and to have closer ties with priests sympathetic to the Revolution, at the same time as stimulating the religious sectors of the Church.'

Although the bishops are not interested

in

wielding political power as

November was interesting. They could see their own position counterposed to the appeal of a popular church, and could not afford to lose their influence over the faithful. In its main paragraphs, the document made these comments: such, the tone of their major pastoral letter in

As far as the freedom of party political organisation is concerned, it seems essential to us that the Nicaraguan masses should have a conscious and active participation in the revolutionary process: this should

be brought about through the existing organisms of direct popular

democracy and those which

will

be created as a result of national

dialogue. Different forces have contributed generously to the historic

process and no-one should place obstacles in the bution. At the head of these forces, itself a

An

place in history.

it is

means the

of their contri-

FSLN

has

won

^^

extensive paragrapli on socialism followed;

socialism

way

clear that the

exercise of

it

concluded that,

'if

power from the perspective of the masses,

and increasingly shared with the organised people so that there is a genuine transfer of power towards the popular classes, it will find nothing in the .'^"^ In fact, their wishes for the Christian faith but motivation and support Nicaraguan Revolution were couched in language which, while perfectly compatible with the FSLN's own vision, began over subsequent months to sound closer to that used by Alfonso Robelo: 'We are confident that the revolutionary process will be something original, creative, profoundly national and in no way imitative. Because, with the majority of the Nicaraguan people, what we aspire to is a process which moves firmly towards a fully and authentically Nicaraguan society, neither capitalist, nor dependent, nor totalitarian'.^^ The hierarchy's dilemma is that it cannot afford to lose its own support to the dominant influence of Sandinismo, yet it fears the loss of its

321

The People

in

Powder

autonomy, all the while knowing that any overt criticism of the Revolution, whose moral authority is undisputed, would lead to an erosion of its own position. The Church is alarmed by the continued presence of priests in government, and by the way in which the lay Delegates of the Word — who played a vital role in the conscientisation of peasant communities — have moved into the mass organisations. In the religious festival of Santo Domingo in August 1980, the government's vigorous support for the ceremony and the way in which the Frente's leadership took to the streets to join in the festivities, far from reassuring the bishops, led them to fear a secular takeover off religious activity.

As the Right attempts

to exploit these divisions, with the Association of

Christian Businessmen unilaterally proposing the evangelical organisation

CEP AD

for

membership of the Council of

State, an important current of

progressive religious thought has crystallised into the so-called Theology of

National Reconstruction. This centres on the Jesuit priest Alvaro Arguello, director of the Historical Institute at the Central also holds a seat

on the Council of State

American University; he

as the representative of the Asso-

(ANCLEN). This tendency promoted a seminar soon after the Revolution entitled Christian Faith and Sandinista Revolution, attended by members of the Junta and the National Directorate. It defines the relationship between the Church and the FSLN in the light of statements such as Fidel Castro's 'there are no contradictions between the tenets of religion and the tenets of socialism '^^ and the assertion of the Mexican Bishop of Cuernavaca, Monsenor Sergio Mendez Arceo, that: 'Marxism is a search for the welfare of all. CapitaHsm is anti-Christian.' Arguello's Instituto Historico has launched a series of educational pamphlets, the Folletos Caspar Garcia Laviana, designed to reassure Christians about Marxism and resist the growing anti-Communism of bourgeois propaganda which has sought to drive a wedge between the Frente and the Church. By May, the row within the Church over the political role of priests became public. Following a directive from Rome, the Nicaraguan bishops demanded that: 'Now that the exceptional circumstances have ended. Christian laymen can carry out with equal efficiency public tasks at present the responsibility of some priests.' Nine of the priests concerned replied promptly to the bishops' criticisms. They included the Cardenal brothers, Miguel D'Escoto and Edgard Parrales, deputy director of the Social Security Institute. In reasserting that 'our loyalty to the Church and our loyalty to the poor cannot be in contradiction', they warned that the unity of the country must be mirrored by the unity of the Church, and that the only people who could get any advantage from the bishops' statement were reactionary ciation of Nicaraguan Clergy

propagandists.^^ later, Bishop Salazar of Leon dismissed a popular Salvadorean from the northern parish of El Viejo and refused to enter into any discussion about his reinstatement. The reaction of the people was an immediate and overwhelming repudiation of the Bishop's action, an

Three months priest

322

Consolidating the Revolution

occupation of the church at El Viejo and then of Leon Cathedral."*^ These frictions are bound to continue, and the Nicaraguan Church now faces a

one which the CathoHc Church in Cuba failed. The Cuban example, of the Church turning against the Revolution and thereby forfeiting its influence, is clear to the Nicaraguan bishops. They recognise that they historic test,

could be marginalised if they adopted the same position as the Cubans, but at the same time they do not wish to identify with the Revolution to such an extent that the Church loses agonise

rank and

file

Organising 'As

its

own independent

over this dilemma, the evidence has already

Women:

we organised

made

its

is

As the bishops mass of the Church's

identity.

clear that the

decision.

AMNLAE CDCs for

the first

the insurrection in the barrios orientales

of Managua, so many husbands were terrified when they saw the degree of involvement of their wives. Terrified by women taking the initiative, fighting, organising. In so many households, the men were less committed to the Revolution than the women. And the woman, with her double oppression oppressed by Somocismo, oppressed by machismo - had to make the choice between her husband and the Revolution. It was extraordinary how many of them, thousands, opted for the Revolution. '(Fatima Caldera,

AMNLAE

Activist)^^

If the participation

of the Church was unprecedented

the massive incorporation of

women

which the Revolution has made into

into the

armed

in

Latin America,

struggle

and the inroads

traditional sexual attitudes are

no

less

remarkable. In Nicaragua mflc/z/smo reached grotesque proportions even by ,

Latin American standards. In the Somoza era, a television advertisement for a well-known brand of rum typified prevalent male values. It showed two birds clawing each other bloodily to death in a cock-fight, as a sonorous voice-over announced 'Cock-fights and rum ... for men who are really men'. The women who joined the struggle against Somoza, and in doing so questioned their own status in Nicaraguan society, were not merely heroic individuals. They had set themselves the task of building a mass women's movement loyal to the FSLN, capable of voicing the demands of Nicaraguan women after the overthrow of Somoza. In this they were heirs to a rich tradition of women's participation in Sandinismo, although their organisation was a recent phenomenon. From the early 1960s, the FSLN had pointed - as had Sandino himself - to the notable role played by women in Zeledon's resistance of 1912, and the presence of fighters like Blanca Arauz, Conchita Alday and Maria de Altamirano in the anti-imperialist war of the 1930s. By 1969, the Frente's revolutionary programme embodied a series of points on the liberation of women, and in the final insurrection a number of women — Dora Maria Tellez, Monica Baltodano, Leticia Herrera - became guerrilla comandantes.

323

The People

in

Powder

command was composed of women, hundreds of men without any problem. '^^ With the example of the three women combatants in the 1977 attack on San Carlos, and the major role played by Dora Maria Tellez in the National Palace seizure, thousands of women joined the FSLN in the final stages of the war. The photographs of dead combatants which filled the early editions o{ Barricada proved the point eloquently: a full 30% of the Frente's fighting strength at the end were women. In addition, during the insurrection, thousands of working-class women provided support for the combatants with food, shelter and medical services, making bombs and storing ammunition. In themselves, these rearguard tasks would have made little impact on many male combatants' stereotyped view of the female role. Their importance was in conjunction with the role which women played at every military and political level. Men learned through visible practice, not through theory, that women were capable of equality in every aspect of the struggle. Nicaraguan women's history of political organisation at the national level is only three years old, and from the beginning it has counted on notable 'There were columns in which the entire

women who commanded

among working-class women. AMPRONAC, the Association of Confronting the National Problem, was born in September 1977. It began to function when the state of siege was lifted, part of the intense revival of political mobilisation. It functioned legally and openly, with a relatively innocuous title, and many prominent middle-class women were active in its leadership. Within months, as the Chamorro assassination polarised political opposition to the dictatorship and the bourgeois opposition lost direction, AMPRONAC faced a critical moment of definition. The movement retained a broad platform designed to attract women of different political persuasions. AMPRONAC defined its aims being: (1) to encourage the participation of women in the resolution of the country's problems; (2) to defend the rights of Nicaraguan women in all sectors and all aspects — economic, political and social; and (3) to defend human rights in strength

Women

general.

But 'the advances of the popular struggle against the dictatorship brought about significant changes in our organisation. We were transforming ourselves from a small organisation of 80 women into a popular organisation with an ever greater will to fight.' This new phase opened with the celebration of International Women's Day in March 1978, when the AMNLAE leadership confronted not only its relationship to the growing mass struggle but also the debate about specific feminist issues. As a statement by one of their leading militants revealed, the at this point, the

two considerations became inseparable

balance between them being dictated by the rhythm of the

Revolution: 'The contents of

Women's Week would not

international feminist movements, because

it

general struggle of our people for a free country. But '^

needs of Nicaraguan

AMPRONAC's protests at

324

human

satisfy the big

gave greater emphasis to the it

did relate to the real

women.

activities at this

rights abuses

time

— may

- hunger strikes, church occupations, appear to have been essentially

Consolidating the Revolution

was not that these activities reflected the early dominance of bourgeois women, but that they came to represent the part which the women's movement, with its current strength and social composition, could most effectively undertake within the overall strategy of the FSLN. Actions like the occupation of the UN building in Managua had enormous international repercussions against the dictatorship. The growing stature of the movement became more apparent towards the middle of 1978, as AMPRONAC worked more directly with the FSLN and the newly formed ATC and more women joined the armed struggle. AMPRONAC did not suffer a major split between women sympathetic to the FAO and those loyal to the FSLN. Instead, its newly recruited militants were overwhelmingly Frente members or sympathisers. AMPRONAC worked closely with the MPU in barrio organisation, and its identity as an overtly Sandinista organisation was sealed with its July 1978 national conference at which 50 women from nine cities committed themselves firmly to the Frente. The democraiic defensive. Yet the key point

1

regional election procedures for the conference indicated that

was now its

effectively functioning as a

AMPRONAC

mass organisation, paving the way for

role after victory.

AMPRONAC

became AMNLAE. It now has a seat on the Council of 25,000 members, and has a local structure of neighbourhood committees each headed by a coordinator, a propaganda secretary and a political development secretary. Debate in these democratically functioning local committees touches on every theme from literacy and social welfare programmes, through the role of women in the military and the trade unions, to questions of sexual politics, childcare, contraception and abortion. Outside the formal structure of AMNLAE, women are active in the other mass organisations, especially the CDSs where they outnumber men in many urban committees. State, contains

AMNLAE has, despite ing

its

drive against

all

this,

machismo and

faced

formidable obstacles in consolidat-

sustaining the victories which

women won

combat. It has based its struggle on pointing to the objective conditions of Nicaraguan women: their economic oppression as the worst paid of industrial workers, their domestic enslavement, the contrasting situation of urban women (many of whom are single parents) and rural women (who are in a more stable male-dominated family environment where traditional roles are harder to break down). The vehicle for educating women is the AMNLAE newspaper. La Voz de la Mujer (Women's Voice), which supplanted a Barricada women's page, edited by a collective o{ two journalists, five women from AMNLAE, and four from the other mass organisations. Like all the publications o^ the mass organisations, Lj Voz de la Mujer has aimed to stimulate debate and polemic, for themselves in

in this

case around the central

demand

for

women's incorporation

into

production and national reconstruction. AMNLAE's concrete achievements have been numerous: setting up women's production collectives and Child Development Centres (CDIs) whose purposes are to collectivise childcare, release

women from

domestic oppression and allow their

full

participation in

325

The People

Power

in

economic activity; a complete ban on sexist advertising and on the commercial exploitation of women; and advances in paternity and divorce legislation. Women, as teachers, learners and organisers, played a dominant role in the Literacy Crusade, a direct response to the marginalisation and higher illiteracy of peasant women. Women have directed major social welfare

programmes such as the rehabilitation of prostitutes and the Quincho programme for street waifs. And they have assisted in forming an

Barrilete

independent organisation of six-to fourteen-year-old children, the Asociacion de Ninos Sandinistas (ANS), which has built on the militant participation of

young chiidren in the insurrection. In a conversation in Managua in early 1980, three members of the ANS — all aged eleven — described the organisation, aims and poUtical significance of the Association of Sandinista Children:

To

ANS, we organise them by grade. A formed in each school and those committees take charge of all the students. The slip which they fill in with their personal details is kept on file, and then we indicate the work they should do. We already have about 5,000 affiliates in schools.'

Elias:

get kids affiliated to the

committee

is

Moises: 'We hope that children

will

have enough schools, playgrounds,

We want

children and their mothers to have hospitals, we want there to be no more kids forced to sell chewinga different

gum

kind of Christmas.

in the streets.'

Jose: 'The

ANS

has to be a serious organisation, because this

is

where

we're going to build the revolutionary cadres of the future.' In the family this

— which AMNLAE

kind of militant maturity

still

among

affirms as the basic unit of society children, coupled with the

new

-

cons-

ciousness of their mothers, has dramatically altered the internal dynamic

of family relationships.

Yet there is much talk within AMNLAE of the dangers of a reflujo — a of impetus — in women's attitudes. The risk was present in all the mass organisations, but more so in PMHLAE Machismo though on the defensive, was still an ever-present enemy of women's integration into the revolutionary process, and women have had to assert their new militancy in many unfamiliar spheres, such as the industrial unions. A prominent woman militant of the FSLN replied to the point when it was put to her by an American feminist interviewer: loss

.

You

ask

me

if

,

there has been a loss of impetus. Perhaps in certain

Among the petty bourgeoisie it's possible that there are some women who say 'OK, I've done my bit. Now let's rest for a while.' But not among the women of the people. Among proletarian women, among peasant women, those who suffered the repression most directly, you don't find that. The woman who went through the sectors, yes.

326

Consolidating the Revolution insurrectional struggle can a

woman

isolated

a little at first,

from her

but

I

am

no longer be apathetic. She can no longer be social context.

Perhaps she might

sure that sooner or later she will

fall

back

become

involved again."*^ the end of the insurrection, mac/z/smo had genuinely been forced back

By

The extent

to which it has temporarily regained ground lies tendency of many men to see female militancy as a product of the military phase o^ the struggle only; the reassertion of a powerful myth of motherhood, which subverts recognition of women's equal capabilities in favour of a traditional approval of the female role as provider; the breathing space given to men by AMNLAE's own need to take stock of its future strategy and the primacy it has given in the present stage of the struggle to achieving women's rights through the consolidation of the Revolution."*^ These are battles which AMNLAE has faced, above all, in the industrial working class, where male attitudes have been slowest to change, and in the armed forces. The organisation has been concerned, despite the assertion of equal pay for equal work, by the passivity of women and the lack of a specific women's struggle in the trade unions."*^ In the CST, male workers have been unwilling to address the issue as men, and have only to the defensive.

in a

number of

factors; the

;

responded

in limited

ways where

AMNLAE

pressure has. forced tliem to do

change

Nicaragua

in the

so.

But the most a

visible

conscious demilitarisation of

in

women,

Revolution's

first

year

is

the result of a military regulation

minimising the exposure of women to potential combat situations. The hundreds of armed female combatants on the streets of Managua are a thing of the past, and the move to reassign women to secretarial, guard and political education duties was resented by many women who had given proof of their equal military ability on the battlefields."** Many women have left the EPS. When the first officer ranks were created in February 1980, the lists contained only fifteen women out of a total of 230. Three held the rank of comandante. Yet although there are frequent complaints from female soldiers of the residual machismo of rank and file troops, this is not the whole story. Paradoxically, the exodus of women from the military is an indication of their political capacity and commitment to the Revolution. While many male combatants came to the armed struggle with minimal political consciousness, the class composition and political experience of

women was

quite different. If they have

men

because they are better placed than

now to

left

fill

the

armed

forces,

it is

positions as intermediate and

leadership cadres in the government and the mass organisations, using for the benefit of the Revolution the technical skills which traditional patterns of training have given them.

Thus the

Social Welfare

are strong in female ex-combatants,

duties with an active role in

and Education Ministries

many of whom combine

their state

AMNLAE.

In assessing its relationship to international feminist currents,

AMNLAE

has been presented with a wide range of Western and Latin American models.

327

.

The People

in

Power

and has opted for a course which has more in common with the Bolivian Housewives' Committee than with the European and North American radical feminism. AMNLAE's most notable visitor, in November 1979, was the Bolivian miner's wife Domitila.In contrast, AMNLAE leaders have often been irritated by Western feminists' attempts to transplant the struggle of women in advanced capitalist countries to the Nicaraguan situation. In the view of Gloria Carrion, executive secretary of AMNLAE: 'When Western feminists

come

here to interview us, very often the

question

first

is:

"What

are

you

doing about abortion, or sexual politics?" Of course, these are important questions for women; but we have to go one step at a time, and our priorities are

determined by our

social, political

and

AMNLAE's struggle for the women into society, cannot be

historical circumstances.

'^^

For the moment,

full

integration of

separated from the overall

equality of

women,

the full

mass organisations to consolidate the Revolution. This no sense conflicts with AMNLAE's recognition that there is a specific women's struggle. A January 1980 document of the organisation contains the important statement: 'We believe that the basis of the problem struggle of the

assertion in

of

women

lies in

the enslaving subjection of

Domestic labour must be recognised integration of

full

for

women's

women

women

to domestic labour.

as the material obstacle

into society.'

Comments

which

limits the

like this provide a

context

participation in the effort to reconstruct Nicaragua, and suggests

demands will emerge from the Nicaraguan women's to the dynamic of AMNLAE's own development as a mass organisation and the speed with which Nicaragua's Revolution can be that ever deepening

movement according

consolidated.

Notes 1

2.

3.

Interview with Literacy Crusade Official, Managua, July 1980. Final Ministry of Education figures, September 1980. Daniel Ortega's speech to the Sixth Conference of the Non-Aligned is translated in full in Pedro Camejo and Fred Murphy (eds). The Nicaraguan Revolution (New York, Pathfinder Press, 1979). This particular allegation, contained in an AP cable, presumably refers to the airstrip at Montelimar on the Pacific coast. Latin America Weekly Report, 'WR-19-08,2\ December 1979. Barricada, 2 March 1980. Barricada, 29 February 1980. See 'Nicaragua in the Caribbean Context', in Latin America Regional Report, RC-80-07, 22 August 1980. For further analysis of the background to this section, see editions of Latin America Weekly Report, especially 'European Socialists Look to Latin America', WR-80-15, 18 April 1980; 'Central America a Key Feature of the President's Latest Grand Tour' WR-80-28; 18 July 1980; and 'A Bridge Too Far from Bonn to Washington', WR-80-34,

Movement

4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

328

Consolidating the Revolution

10.

29 August 1 980. Guaro is cheap 2i[c6ho\, nacatamales

are a Nicaraguan delicacy of

ground

maize and meat.

FSLN militant in Ministry of Planning, Managua, July 1980. 12. Interview in Managua, February 1980. 13. Interview in Managua, August 1980. 14. Propaganda de la Produccion (collection of articles from the weekly 1

1.

Interview with

Poder Sandinista), (Managua, SENAPEP, 1980), pp. 27-8. 15. Barricada, 12

December 1980. 13 March 1980.

16.

Poder Sandinista, No. 21

17.

George Black and John Bevan, The Loss of Fear - Education in Nicaragua Before and After the Revolution, (London, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign and World

18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23.

,

Parts of this chapter appeared originally in

University Service, 1980). Ibid.,v.6\. Interview with literacy brigadista, village near Masaya, March 1980. Interview with businessman, Managua, February 1980. Interview with women in Esteli, March 1980 (AMNLAE). LaPrensa, 12 March 1980. Quoted by Alicia Sanchez in 'Literacy Crusade - An End and a Btginmng' Nicaragua Today (bulletin of the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign), No. 2, October 1 980. 'The Churches in the Nicaraguan Revolution', Paper by Michael Dodson and Tommie Sue Montgomery, presented to the Latin American Studies Association National Meeting, Bloomington, Indiana 16-19 October 1979, pp. 2, 7. Interview with Dona Olivia de Guevara, a long time resident of Solentiname, Managua, February 1980. Ernesto Cardenal, 'Lo Que Fue Solentiname, in \EVkhk, El Pueblo Frente a la Dinastia, p. 92. Nicaragua - Combate de un Pueblo, Presencia de los Cristianos (Lima, Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1978), p. 54. ,

24.

25. 26.

27.

28. Ibid.,v. 58. 29., Manifiesto a las Fuerzas Cristianas Solidarizadas con

la

Lucha Revolu-

Cionaria del Pueblo Nicaraguense, June 1975. 30. 3

1

.

32. 33. 34.

Mensa

je del Espicopado ante la Gran Crisis de la Nacion, Managuan, 28 January 1978. Mensaje del Episcopado ante la Gran Crisis de la Nacion, Managua,

Dodson and Montgomery, loc. cit., especially pp. 8-9, 12-16. Interview with Padre JuHo Lopez, Esteh, March 1980. Quoted by Jose Arguello in Nicaragua en Lucha, No. 3. Barcelona,

COSOC AN,

February 1980. Episcopado Nicaraguense - Compromiso Cristiano para una Nueva Nicaragua, Managua, 17 November 1979.

35. Carta Pastoral del 36. Ibid., pp. 7-8. 37. Ibid., p. 9.

38. Ibid., p. 10. 39. Fidel Castro, Statement to Jamaican priests

1 977, quoted in Folletos Populares Caspar Garcia Laviana, (Managua, Instituto Historico

329

The People

in

Power

Centroamericano, 1980), No. 1., p. 23. 40. Latin America Weekly Report, V^R-^0-2\, 30 U2iy 1980. 41. ElNuevoDiario,3\ July 1980. 42. Interview with Fatima Caldera, Oficina de la Mujer del Ministerio de Bienestar Social, Managua, February 1980. 43. Humberto Ortega, interview with Marta Harnecker. 44. 45.

46. 47.

Megan Martin and Susie Willett {Eds.),Women in Nicaragua (London Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, 1980), p. 36. Nora Astorga, interviewed by Margaret Randall in Nicarauac No. 2., July-August 1980, pp. 42-3. Interview with Luzmylia Blandon, member of the teachers' union ANDEN, Managua, July 1980. This issue has received extended coverage^in the AMNLAE newspaper, La Voz de la Mujer. See for example interview with Rosa Maria, thirtynine-year-old factoiy worker in Voz de la Mujer, No. 1 May 1 980. Interview with three female EPS soldiers, Rivas, February 1980. Martin and Willett, op. cit., pp. 35-36. ,

,

,

48.

49.

330

15.

The Threat of CounterRevolution

How

the Counter-Revolution

Works

Right-wing terrorism against the Sandinista Government began on 19 July,

1979, the very day of victory. Since then, far from letting up, attacks by groups of former National Guardsmen have escalated, their rhythm closely

matching each fresh conflict between the FSLN and the right-wing private sector. With the collapse of the Guard, 7.000 of Somoza's troops were taken prisoner. But another 5.000 escaped to El Salvador. Honduras, Guatemala and the USA. On the weekend following the Sandinista victory, a car-load of heavily armed Guardsmen machine-gunned the Camino Real Hotel near Managua Airport, which was the temporary headquarters of members of

Government of National Reconstruction; they wounded several FSLN at the entrance. At night. Somocistas who had taken refuge in Red Cross centres and the Salvadorean and Guatemalan embassies slipped out under cover of darkness to fire on FSLN patrols and road-blocks. These first attacks, for all the shouts of 'Somoza will return!', were desperate and leaderless acts of revenge. They formed part of no political strategy. But almost immediately, Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero began to shuttle between Miami and Guatemala City, reassembling the remnants of the Guard into an effective fighting force, and the 2.000 housed in temporary refugee camps across the Honduran border began to overcome their demoralisation the

guards stationed

and launch systematic

Nicaraguan territory. of Somocista violence, the dangerous temptation was Nicaraguans to see the term 'counter-revolution' only as a descripstrikes into

In this initial climate for

many

tion o( armed attempts to re-install the dictatorship, failing to take precau-

tions against the

more

insidious attacks

on the Revolution. Since then,

understanding of the process has matured, in two distinct phases. As political education took root, the rush of enthusiasm to correct the original narrow

swung popular feeling briefiy to the opposite extreme: 'counterbecame a blanket insult for Somocistas, criminals, incompetent workers, and even traffic offenders! The word threatened to lose all meaning. When a Venezuelan internationalist working for INRA died in a drowning definition

revolutionary'

accident, the local

CDS

negligence' in allowing

accused his fellow-workers of 'counter-revolutionary to become exhausted through overwork. Happily,

him

331

The People

in

Power

the consolidation of the mass movement and the rising incidence of economic and ideological assaults on the Revolution led to a more solid grasp of what counter-revolution meant. People began to ask the most pertinent questions: was it any longer adequate to portray National Guard terrorists as isolated psychopaths, or did they form the military spearhead of a defined rightwing strategy? Did the terrorism of the extreme Right abroad relate directly, or coincidentally, to economic destabilisation by the domestic opposition? What points were there in common between ultra-left groups and the Right, and was there conscious collaboration between them? What role was the CIA playing in fomenting discontent? And how did the Right set about creating an artificial climate of crisis? What were the ideological weapons at its

disposal?

USA was difficult in the low level of direct US investment and the limited space for manoeuvre by American financial agencies. The threat was also counterbalanced by the substantial levels of aid flowing in from Nicaragua's Social Democratic allies and the disarming effect of the government's willingness to renegotiate its external debt. For the US to withhold its direct aid (a not very significant $75 million, in any case) proved both an ineffective and internationally unpopular weapon, not least because of the open split in Washington between those in the Carter Administration who saw aid as a way of defending private sector interests in the country and those who argued for a total freeze on bilateral assistance. A much more promising line of attack for those in Washington who wanted to subvert the Sandinista Revolution was to support the efforts being made by the Nicaraguan Right to sabotage economic recovery by running down production levels, encouraging the flight of capital, smuggling, hoarding and speculating, and strikes in key economic sectors. For the latter, anti-FSLN groups on the Left could prove useful tactical vehicles.* The Right faced complex problems in furthering this strategy. In their favour was the fact that the private sector still controlled a majority of industry and agriculture, but this was offset by a number of factors: the state's control of finance, foreign trade and a portion of internal distribution; the capacity Direct economic attack on the country by the

case of Nicaragua, because of the traditionally

of the popular organisations to respond effectively to sabotage; the serious its attitude to the economic by the Right's own admission — its lack of a popular base. Its response, in crude terms, was as follows: to build its own power base in areas where the FSLN had yet to consolidate its support the Atlantic Coast, the most marginal peasant groups and small traders (traditional Somoza strongholds), and any remaining middle-class 'fioaters'; to try and weaken mass support for the Frente; to assess the chances of strategic unity between the 'civic' opposition and sectors of the armed extreme Right; and to overcome the historical disunity of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie. The final point was perhaps the most serious dilemma for the opposition, since any attempt to unify the Right would almost certainly derive from the opportunism of one or other group within the bourgeois

divisions within the opposition bourgeoisie over

reactivation

332

programme; and

—

The Threat of Counter-Revolution leadership,

whose own

sectional

economic aspirations were not necessarily

those of the private sector as a whole. At the time of writing, there

is still

no unified right-wing opposition to the FSLN, but the signs are that it may be imminent, and since his resignation from the Junta in April 1980, Alfonso Robelo has been clearly bidding for its leadership. Within the private enterprice organisation, political

COSEP, Robelo's

MDN has certainly established its

ascendancy.

main thrust of the counter-revolutionary Right has been choosing accusations which would simultaneously the most vulnerable areas of the Revolution and gain the likeliest

Logically then the ,

in the ideological sphere, hit

in Washington. These campaigns^ have concentrated first on undermining the moral authority of the Sandinistas and casting doubt on any anti-capitalist measures taken by the government. To attack the van-

consensus support

guard role of the

FSLN,

the criticisms levelled suggest that the Frente

is

an

exclusively military organisation, incapable of running a country at peace.

There are personalised attacks on Sandinista leaders, rumours of splits between 'radicalising' and 'restraining' influences in the National Directorate, accusations of economic incompetence (especially in the Area of Public Ownership), constant criticisms of the armed forces, rumour campaigns about food shortages, Cuban advisers, local abuses of power. Second, there are tactics destined to show the bourgeoisie's dedication to 'pluralism' as opposed to an FSLN hell-bent on 'totalitarianism'. Democracy is equated exclusively with 'free elections', socialism in other countries is denigrated, the Literacy Crusade is attacked as an instrument of indoctrination, the Frente 's objective of labour unity is depicted as an assault on trade union freedoms, the CDSs (and, in particular, their security functions) are labelled the equivalent

of the orejas of the Somoza era, and attempts are

made

to define the

FSLN

as

and weaken the Revolution's base of support among the progressive clergy and a still deeply religious population.-' (This campaign had an interesting counterpoint in ultra-left accusations that the FSLN had 'betrayed Marxism' by building such a close relationship with the Church.) As a last resort, the Right has had recourse to acts of open provocation, hoping thereby to push the FSLN into repressive actions which can be depicted as attacks on the right to free association, press freedoms, political pluralism, human rights — matters which Washington now considers important in Nicaragua for the first time. The right-wing parties and press have been the loudest champions of the extreme left Frente Obrero and the Nicaraguan 'anti-religious'

Communist Party tion, the

ment of

in their

Permanent

confrontations with the

Human

FSLN. Since the Revolubecome a virtual instru-

Rights Commission has

the right-wing Social Christian Party, acting as an apologist for

National Guard prisoners. Through the privately

owned

local

media, with

eager assistance from Western press agencies, the Right has launched an

anti-Communist campaign attacking other revolutionary in the region — most notably in El Salvador — and playing its part in the process of 'softening-up' public opinion to accept possible US military intervention in Central America. aggressive

movements

full

333

The People

One

in

Power

year on, the possible emergence of a unified right-wing opposition

was the

biggest internal threat to the

FSLN. But,

paradoxically, the

were not with the Right but with the far Left. It is worth looking in some detail at who the ultristas are and what tactics they employed to attack the Revolution from the Left. Sandinistas'

first

ideological skirmishes

More Revolutionary than the Revolution? The

Ultra-Left

'There are groups dedicated to confusing the masses. Since they believe that

what we have

is

a bourgeois revolution, they

to install socialism here.

As

tell

for example, that his house needs repair, that he

money, that he

is

workers that they must fight

their basis for this, they will tell the peasant,

unemployed.

And

there

is

is

starving, that

no doubt

he has no

that all this sounds

very sympathetic and attractive to someone who is hungry, someone who needs to be properly clothed, someone whose family needs a breadwinner. But these elements do not dare address themselves to the most advanced sectors of our people. They aim their propaganda at the most backward sectors, because they know that there they have some chance of confusing people. (Commandante Carlos Nunez, speaking about the ultra-Left). '

Nunez's comments accurately describe the tactics of several groups who have tried to exploit the gap between the legitimate wishes of the Nicaraguan masses and the immediate capacity of the state to transform social relations. Their aim is to outflank the FSLN and strengthen their own power base. On the far Left of Nicaraguan politics, two groups are insignificant — the tiny Trotskyist Liga Marxista Revolucionaria and the Movimiento Obrero Revolucionario (MORE), the latter despite its proven links with the Communist Party. The FSLN's three major confrontations with the Left have been with the CAUS/Communist Party, discussed in Chapter 13, a prolonged running battle punctuated by uneasy truces; with the internationalist Brigada Simon Bolivar, and with the Movimiento de Accion Popular-Frente Obrero

(MAP-FO).

Of the many Latin American international brigades which fought alongside FSLN, the Brigada Simon Bolivar was always a maverick. Organised in

the

Colombia by the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST), it embraced combatants from Chile, Uruguay Venezuela, Mexico, the USA and other Latin American countries, subscribing to varied ideologies. The combatants entered Nicaragua during the last days of the war on the Frente Sur. Other ,

sympathisers actually attached themselves to the Brigade after 19 July. More than anything, the freedom with which they operated indicated the FSLN's

problems of imposing centralised military authority on irregular fighting and the Brigada Simon Bolivar took advantage of the post-war chaos to dress in FSLN uniforms and carry red and black flags in order to convince people that they spoke with FSLN authority. The PST leadership encouraged a simplistic move to socialism, exhorting workers to strike and peasants to

early

units

334

The Threat of Counter-Revolution seize private land.

As the Frente became aware of the threat of

a

newly

arrived foreign group posing as an alternative revolutionary leadership, called leaders of the Brigade in for meetings

where

it

it

stressed the need for

internationalist units to be integrated swiftly into the single Sandinista milit-

ary

command. The response was

aggressive.

When

the

FSLN

arranged a

meeting with all Brigade members on 14 August, it found itself confronted with a demonstration of 1 ,000 workers who had been brought there — supposedly by an FSLN contingent - in the belief that they were to lobby the Sandinista leadership on wages and trade union questions. The demonstration was the last straw, and the Frente expelled sixty nonNicaraguan members of the Brigade to Panama."* Six

weeks

later there

was more trouble from the

State Security arrested five

members of

Left.

On

3 October,

the Nicaraguan Socialist Party, accus-

them of having collaborated with Somocistas. Although there was no PSN itself was involved in activities against the government (indeed it has been the FSLN's most active supporter), the ing

suggestions that the

incident raised the possibility of direct collaboration between the extreme

Right and the Left, with the

common

aim of undermining

FSLN

authority.

Suggestions of this came to a head with the most serious ultra-Left attack on

FSLN —

the activities of the Frente Obrero. December and January months of traditional unemployment in Nicaragua, and, as the FSLN had predicted, it was a period used by the Frente Obrero to accelerate a political and military campaign against the new government. Like the Brigada Simon Bolivar, but in sharp contrast to the Communists who at least recognised the initial vanguard role of the FSLN, the Frente Obrero denounced the FSLN from the outset as having sold out the Revolution to the bourgeoisie. But the FO was not a new organisation: it had a very particular history. It was formed by FSLN dissidents in 1970 and expelled by the Frente in 1972 after revelations of a plot to assassinate the entire FSLN leadership. It was never able to carry out its threats, largely because it did not succeed in recruiting enough cadres. Right from the early 1970s there were allegations that its members had close ties to Somoza's Office of National Security (OSN). Although its ideology was not consistent, the FO's basic orientation was towards Peking, and it held this line until the Chinese

the

are the

invasion of Vietnam,

when

it

switched

its

allegiance to Enver

Hoxha's

managed to build a limited base own student movement, the Comites de

Albania. Towards the end of the decade,

it

working class, and had its Lucha Estudiantil Universitaria (University Students Fighting Committees: CLEUS). During the FSLN split it attempted to masquerade as a fourth in the

Sandinista tendency, the so-called

FSLN

Autentico.

dubious ancestry, the Frente Obrero found fertile ground among the dispossessed peasantry and some urban slum-dwellers. Its name alone (Workers' Front) tricked many uneducated workers into believing that the FO was acting legitimately in the interests of the working class. And if its name was likely to deceive naive workers and peasants, the acronym of the FO's armed wing, the MILPAS, was even more cleverly chosen. To any

With

this

335

The People

in

Power

Central American peasant, the milpa

is a cornfield, the plot of land cultivated by subsistence farmers. In the peasant value system, the milpa has an almost religious significance. The Frente Obrero encouraged land invasions and the spontaneous takeover of privately owned urban land by the unemployed, criticising the government for the measured pace of the agrarian reform and

accusing the

ment.

Its

Brigada

FSLN

of being the hostage of

a

bourgeois reformist govern-

was little different from that of the an immediate uncontrolled passage of socialism

strategy, in other words,

Simon

Bolivar

-

which would, of course, have destroyed the Nicaraguan Revolution. In September, the MAP-FO made its narrow sectional ambitions clear. Instead of supporting the FSLN initiative to delay the Council of State and ensure its worker-peasant majority, the MAP-FO joined the Right's campaign for the immediate installation of the Council in its original form which included the Frente Obrero. Better a quasi-parliamentary organ reinforcing bourgeois strength with

FO was

FO

representation than a class-based Council from which the

absent.

Trade union activity by the FO and attacks by its newspaper. El Pueblo, were stepped up with the publication of Plan 80. El Pueblo demanded the 'active sabotage of the economic plan in order to bring power back into the hands of the people'. This was no idle threat. The FO encouraged the walkout by SCAAS building workers in January, denouncing the Parque Luis Alfonso Velasquez job creation scheme as an attack on working-class interests, and of course trying to swell its own ranks by recruiting disaffected SCAAS members. But it concentrated its main energies on the sugar refineries. 'Generally they operate where we (the FSLN) are weak, where our cadres and miHtants have not been able to go to explain the country's economic situation.'^ The FO had formed a 'Comite Agrosindical' on Somoza's old sugar estate of Montelimar, where Somoza's paternalism towards his own employees worked to the Frente Obrero's advantage. The FSLN faced tremendous problems there. Somoza had kept on 3,000 underemployed workers on the estate, an anomaly which the ATC and INRA tried

by rationalising the labour force, giving the maximum amount of employment and launching a local job creation programme to generate work for those left unemployed. The FO moved in rapidly, and with some success, to exploit discontent. to rectify full-time

Its attacks at the Ingenio Monterrosa and the huge Ingenio San Antonio, both in the departamento of Chinandega, were even more damaging. There is an urban and rural proletariat of 25,000 in Chinandega, which is an important focus for the economic reactivation programme. The departamento contains not only the two sugar mills, but the country's main port (Corinto), banana plantations, cotton gins, important cooking-oil and food-processing plants and chemical factories for crop-spraying. The paralysis of economic activity in Chinandega was a serious affair. By 31 January, both San Antonio and Monterrosa were in the third day of an FO-led strike. The sugar crop is particularly vulnerable to work stoppages: stacked cane rots quickly and the molasses contained solidifies if not promptly processed. The ATC

336

The Threat of Counter-Revolution calculated that daily losses at San Antonio alone were upwards of half a million cordobas.

At Monterrosa,

FO

leader Alejandro Gutierrez told workers that

be necessary to fight another attain genuine

civil

war

—

this

time against the

worker and peasant power. The

FO

it

would

FSLN —

to

deceived workers at

Monterrosa into believing that a number of local cane-cutters had been arrested, and announced its plan to take several truckloads of workers to Managua to protest against their detention. Instead, they drove the Monterrosa workers to San Antonio to persuade labourers there to boycott a mass assembly being addressed by Comandante Henry Ruiz, the new Minister of Planning. FO activists stormed the platform to prevent Ruiz from speaking. Although they temporarily disrupted the meeting, the attack was ultimately a failure. When the FO left, the mass meeting carried on and 4,000 San Antonio workers elected a new union leadership as planned. From San Antonio, the FO and the Monterrosa workers went on to Managua. On arrival, the workers discovered that, far from protesting against the detention of fellow-labourers from Monterrosa (who were in fact at liberty in San Antonio), they were expected by the FO to demonstrate against the closure, five days earlier, of the FO newspaper El Pueblo. Having spent the night in Managua, the Monterrosa workers returned home the next day angry and exhausted, and met FSLN and CST leaders who explained the consequences of their strike. It was not an easy task, since the FO had genuine support at Monterrosa, but eventually a majority decided to call off the strike in exchange for promises of immediate social wage improvements. As well as assuring prompt attention to local health and housing problems, the Frente promised that an ENABAS basic grain store would be installed in the refinery. The FO did not give up, and at San Antonio they played their final card — the deployment of their armed MILPAS. When San Antonio workers called off their stoppage, cane cutters returning to the fields were met by FO supporters who slashed the tyres of their trucks and threatened workers with guns and machetes.^ The FSLN undoubtedly made mistakes in its handling of the sugar refinery disputes. In a key economic area, it had failed to anticipate the degree of support for FO demands, and the response which finally settled the strike was the result of an emergency decision rather than careful forward planning. In Monterrosa especially, the Frente Obrero succeeded in convincing the work force that the FSLN's anti-FO stance was also an anti-worker one. To add fuel to this argument, units of the EPS had briefly detained the Monterrosa workers in Chinandega as they made their way to Managua, ^pointing their guns at them threatingly' according to a Barricada article criticizing the incident, an almost unique case of confrontation between the Sandinista military and rank and file workers. For the rest, the Sandinista counteroffensive was directed at the FO leadership. The FSLN media took up the fight. They reported Tomas Borge's accusation that the FO was following 'mechanical ideological formulae' which failed to understand Nicaraguan history. One cartoon in Barricada portrayed an FO activist floating on a

337

The People

in

Power

cloud above a group of workers, with his head buried in a book, and the .' It summed the FO caption 'Having seized poHtical power, proceed to up nicely^ And FSLN Party Organisation Secretary, Carlos Carrion, made it .

clear that the

FSLN had no

.

quarrel with the working-class

by the FO, only with

demands

ostens-

and motivation: This miniscule organisation is quite ignorant of the situation of the country and the real problems we face. They make a series of proposals which are totally pie in the sky. These proposals are very nice, very interesting, but quite unrelisable.'^ Just as the sugar strikes had less to do with economic demands than with FO retaliation for the 23 January closure of their newspaper El Pueblo, the Frente's counter-attacks concentrated less on the strikes than on the reasons for closing the paper which had provided their ideological basis. The paper had circulated freely during the final weeks of the war in Managua, but the January closure was not the first time the FSLN had halted its production. In late July 1919, El Pueblo had been closed during the short spell of post-war censorship which also silenced La Prensa, and its director Melvin Wallace had been briefly detained. For the next six months, £^7 Pueblo's attacks on the Revolution (or in its own phrase 'the Sandinista phase of the Revolution') had intensified. It had declared support for a tiny new organisation in Leon, the Movimiento Popular Revolucionario, whose declared aim was to 'rescue the CDSs from Sandinismo'. It had denounced the Literacy Crusade and employment creation programmes as reformist exercises in pacifying 'unstable social sectors', and criticised voluntary work weekends as exploitation means of enriching a bourgeois state. In its final edition, it had lambasted Plan 80 for giving 'great opportunities to the bourgeoisie and the businessmen and few benefits to the exploited masses'. It was intolerable provocation, and the EPS moved in to occupy the building and arrest El Pueblo's editors. Although the move was welcomed by most of the ibly being put

FSLN's supporters, the Frente went

their timing

to considerable lengths to explain the

need for repressive action against a paper with a circulation of only 2,000 copies, and the vulnerability of the young state to what it called 'ideological diversionism'. Although Comandante Walter Ferreti of State Security displayed two large caches of MILPAS arms, which Frente Obrero leader Isidro Tellez admitted were connected to his organisation, the charges initially brought against the eight-ultra-leftists arrested did not relate to illegal possession of arms. Instead, they invoked the law for the Maintenance of Order and Public Safety, which prohibited 'the written publication of proclamations or manifestoes designed to harm popular interests'. During the trial of the eight, Judge Victor Manuel Ordonez referred to an article in El Pueblo's 21 January edition calling for 'the replacement of the government with another truly capable of defending our self-determination in the face of attack [from international reactionary forces] '. Press freedom was one of the major democratic liberties won by the Sandinista Revolution, and the Frente did not take the decision to close down El Pueblo lightly. Nevertheless, the move was met with a barrage of criticism — from Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Barrios of La Prensa, from the

338

The Threat of Counter-Revolution

CTN, and from

right-wing broadcasters on Radio Mil and Radio Mundial.

name of pluralism reinforced one of the Frente's basic arguments: if left-wing opposition to the government had no realistic hope of providing convincing alternatives, whose interests were being objectively Their reaction in the

served by the antics of the ultra-Left? Recalling the early allegations of

collaboration between the Frente Obrero and Somoza's

OSN, FSLN

leaders

began to wonder aloud who had paid for the MAP-FO's expensive printing equipment, and why El Pueblo had escaped Somoza's Black Code which had shut down even the bourgeois La Prensa for a year. They pointed, too, to the extensive coverage given by El Pueblo to the activities of the Social Christian Party and the amount of advertising space which the PSC had purchased in return for the favour. If the FO was harming economic recovery and dividing the working class, it was playing straight into the hands of the Right.

El Pueblo's printing works were handed over to the Literacy Crusade as anti-FO demonstrators had demanded, but the episode was not over. The Frente Obrero had repeatedly assured the

MILPAS, had been

FSLN

that

its

dissolved after the Revolution and

armed wing, the weapons handed

all

month after the closure of the newspaper, one arms cache after another was discovered, often with the initials MILPAS burned into the gun-stocks. A wave of hold-ups and attacks on Sandinista patrols followed, producing a climate of real tension in Managua. Reorganisation of the EPS was still incomplete. The Casa de Gobierno was still guarded by teenage soldiers in jeans and T-shirts, and over to the Sandinista military. But in the

civilian trust in the Sandinista

youth carrying the

MILPAS

a

machinegun

armed forces was momentarily shaken. Any in the street

might, in fact, be

a

member of

or a soldier of the EPS.

But from April 1980 onwards, MILPAS attacks declined. The Frente Obrero had lost its temporary initiative, and there was a high desertion rate among its members. In June, Wheelock and Borge held private talks with the leaders of the

rump

that remained.

They came away encouraged:

'At

bottom, these people now have positive attitudes. We have found them receptive to our arguments, to the point of examining the possibility of incorporating them into the tasks of the Revolution, respecting their right to criticise

but not to act subversively.'

The Robelo Resignation the early months, sections of private enterprise At government level, the first fissure came some nine months after the Revolution when Junta member, Alfonso Robelo, announced his resignation on 22 April 1980. The FSLN National Directorate held a press conference the next day to offer their comments. Comandantes Arce, Wheelock and Humberto Ortega noted that its ostensible reason, the enlargement of the Council of State, had been merely a pretext.

After their disorientation

began to spoil for

in

a fight.

339

The People

in

Power

in recent months/ declared their prepared statement, 'Engineer Robelo had been questioning a series of FSLN initiatives.'^ Robelo's development in nine months of power spoke eloquently of his opportunism and his inexperience as a politician. Within a week of the victory he had been in Cuba as a member of the FSLN/Government of National Reconstruction delegation to the Moncada anniversary celebrations, returning home with ecstatic praise for the 'clarity of Comandante Castro's thought'. Robelo even began to sell off some of his business interests. None,

theless, he remained the private sector's hope for leverage within the government, and was sharply reminded by his own MDN members - alarmed at this apparently spectatular conversion to Sandinismo — of where his loyalties lay. In January, he served notice of his intention to pursue personal and private sector interests from within the Junta, when the MDN published its Ideario Politico. It was an extraordinary document: a mix of half-baked reformism, private sector propaganda and resonant nationalism appropriated from the writings of Sandino. It stressed the vital role played by the private sector in the 1978 strikes, credited the FSLN with 'more courage than fighting resources', claimed prominent MDN involvement in armed combat, and now proposed transforming the MDN from a movement into a fully fledged party. In the name of 'political pluralism', Robelo's own preface to the manifesto depicted the MDN as leading a march towards 'a process of socialisation in freedom, a political, economic and social system which is authentically revolutionary, genuinely Nicaraguan'.^^ Education and the military would be apolitical: 'Programmes of study shall not be aligned to a specific political ideology',^* and 'the police and army shall both be at the service of the homeland, and not of a particular ideology or party. '^^ To round off, the MDN manifesto left its readers with resonant phrases from Sandino, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro and Nicaragua's great national poet Ruben Dario. Robelo signed the preface with Sandino's own seal of Tatria y Libertad\ In itself, the language may seem innocuous enough, an empty populism which would cut little ice with the Nicaraguan masses. But Robelo sought to turn the very basis o{ Sandinismo — a specific national solution which did not imitate foreign models — against the FSLN, appropriating the language of Sandino without the class substance. Just as seriously, the key paragraphs on education, private enterprise and the military aligned Robelo clearly with the main lines of current right-wing propaganda, and it used his position within the government to do so. Robelo took pains to confuse his two roles as MDN leader and Junta member, and in public appearances it became hard to tell in which capacity he was speaking. The rift began to open with the events of February and March (the ATC march, the factory occupations and the decree against decapitalisation of industry). By early March, Robelo must have been convinced that his future no longer lay with the Junta. At this point. La Prensa took up his case with a banner headline 'Applause for Robelo and Attacks for the Government'.^^ Robelo had attended a meeting of private traders on 9 March to hear complaints about ENABAS and government .

340

.

.

The Threat of Counter-Revolution attempts to monopolise domestic commerce. As the private traders reserved their most bitter attacks for the CDSs, and announced their intention of 'declaring war'

on the government, Robelo declared

his full

sympathy

for

their grievances. a private visit to the USA, where he had lobbied speedy release of the Carter Administration's $75 million aid package to bolster the private sector, and had held talks with Deputy Secretary of State, Warren Christopher. Major MDN meetings in the following weeks

He had just returned from

for the

received headline treatment in

the

La Prensa. On

MDN stronghold of Chinandega. was

March, Robelo appeared in by Robelo' commented serving member of the Junta.

1 1

'Singular speech

from a and firmer guarantees for private business, and implicitly accused the FSLN of breaking the terms of the 1979 government programme. On 16 March, with three fellow Junta members out of the country, he repeated the same themes to an audience of 5,000 in Managua, for the most part well-heeled capitalinos who booed the appearance of red and black Sandinista flags in the crowd. The Junta's press office came out with a terse statement: 'Companero Robelo has full freedom to the headlines.*"*

It

He demanded prompt

singular indeed

'free elections'

express his personal opinion as leader of the

MDN.

This demonstrates the

and ideological pluralism which exists in the counixy .' Barricada, seeing the way in which Robelo was sliding, was more forthright. In its 18 March editorial, the paper condemned him for attempts to 'conceal the true roots and class character of the MDN'. The CST, more bluntly still, accused Robelo of being 'a rat who took refuge in Sandinismo when the ship of the oligarchy was sinking'. Why then, if the split was so deep, did Robelo not resign in mid-March? The answer can be traced back to the special position of the MDN within the private sector. The Movement had been formed in 1978 by a small but dynamic business sector in response to the failures of the traditional bourgeois parties and coalitions. Its leadership had from the start been highly personalist. Robelo had been an appropriate private sector figure for inclusion in a Sandinista Junta because the MDN's power base had been more stifled by Somocismo than any other organised capitalist group. The MDN was not tainted by a history of collaboration with the dictatorship. From the moment the new party was formed, Robelo had been set on unifying the bourgeois opposition under MDN leadership, and the sustained deterpolitical

mination of the FSLN after the Revolution to attack capitalist prerogatives provided him with a new opportunity. An abrupt resignation in March would have hampered his efforts to build a solid political base and US support from of credibility within the Junta. Instead, he opted to wait for a major conflict which might allow him to mobilise the whole disarrayed private sector behind his resignation. In the event, this meant hanging fire for a full month after his 16 March Managua rally, until the Council of State expansion came up for a Junta vote.*^ The Junta split 2-2 on the decision to amend the Fundamental Statute and enlarge the Council. In the absence of Daniel Ortega, who was touring a position

single

341

The People

in

Power

was made by proxy by another member of the announce the new decree, Sergio Ramirez explained that: 'There should be nothing surprising about this. We have followed the same procedure on other occasions, since Comandante Ortega is a representative of the National Directorate of the FSLN and may perfectly well be replaced by another of its members.' In itself, the Council of State vote provided Robelo with a pretext for resignation. Equally important was the timing, and a series of events over the previous weeks helped convince him that resignation now would place him at Africa, the casting vote

Frente's National Directorate. At the 21 April press conference to

the head of a powerful backlash against the

FSLN.

His

US

trip

—

though the

not publicly known — may have been one consideration. So may Venezuelan remarks that preferential oil supplies were linked to 'the extent results are

that Nicaragua advances in the process of democratisation'. On 18 April, a meeting of all four bourgeois parties and COSEP at the Social Christian Party headquarters indicated that the Council of State issue was important enough to draw a united response from the Right. Finally, and most cynically, Robelo saw considerable tactical advantage in linking his resignation with that of Violeta de Chamorro on 20 April, a decision communicated to the Junta in advance on the grounds of ill-health and exhaustion. Chamorro subsequently reiterated that her resignation had no political overtones. In a brief letter of resignation, Robelo accused the FSLN of 'deviation from the goals of our Revolution'. In reply, the National Directorate described his action as 'an abandonment of the Revolution at a moment when he thought it would bring him greater political advantage'. The resignation rebounded badly on Robelo. The Frente moved quickly to nip the crisis in the bud, and the Right failed to coalesce in the way Robelo had hoped. First, the MDN itself was far from being a united force. Although its national council issued a statement in line with Robelo's resignation letter, accusing the Council of State of being a 'totalitarian-style apparatus', warning signs within the party should have alerted Robelo to its shortcomings as a credible political force. After the 16 March rally, two of the MDN's leading members, Industry Minister Fernando Guzman and Vice-Minister of Internal Trade Pedro Antonio Blandon had left the party in protest, undermining any hopes Robelo may have entertained of a mass walkout from the government of

high-ranking

MDN officials. Nor did the party's rank and file all welcome the prominent MDN local officials from Leon and Chinandega

resignation: three

condemned Robelo

for his failure to consult the party's bases. ^^

right-wing groups also failed to act decisively.

COSEP closeted

The other away

itself

for discussions with the US Embassy, and the Democratic Conservatives for heated internal debates on party tactics. In the end, as we have seen, none of them boycotted the Council of State although some delayed taking up their ,

seats.

The FSLN reacted

in three ways: by reasserting the principles of national unswerving commitment to the pre-eminence of working-class interests, and its refusal to respond to the artificial 'crisis' with concessions;

unity,

its

by mobilising the mass organisations immediately and linking

342

their protests

The Threat of Counter-Revolution to the broader class issues involved; and by smoothly replacing Robelo (and Chamorro) on the Junta with two more representatives of the middle class.

For COSEP, the identity of the new Junta members mattered less than the manner of their appointment. For almost a month, the Junta continued with three members, while holding regular meetings with the private sector. At the end of April it lifted the state of emergency in force since the victory and reinstated habeas corpus, thus defusing one of the bourgeoisie's main constitutional arguments against the way in which the revolutionary state was being run. And on 18 May, the FSLN National Directorate - by simple direct nomination, which removed any lingering doubts about a conflict of authority in the government — named former Central Bank President, Arturo Cruz, and Conservative lawyer and UDEL leader, Rafael Cordova Rivas, to the two vacant places on the Junta. In their brief acceptance remarks. Cruz and Cordova Rivas further undermined the threat posed by Robelo. 'Political pluralism has been maintained,' said Cordova Rivas. it has never ceased to exist. A clear example of it is the Council of State, in which political parties of differing ideologies are represented.''^

He denied

categorically that

Washington threats to break diplomatic relations had influenced the new appointments. Cruz, meanwhile, stressed the importance of his own 'excellent personal relationships

with

The new Junta members had

many COSEP

leaders.'

moderate and Pedro Joaquin Chamorro — UDEL tradition of anti-Somocismo stood firmly behind the FSLN still as the Revolution moved into a new phase. Their comments, and Cordova Rivas's own decisive shift away from the policies of the new Democratic Conservative Party, pre-empted any right-wing attempts to appropriate that tradition. Whatever the MDN's rhetoric about 'socialisation in liberty' or the Social Christians' professed desire for a 'Costa Rican' future, there was no room left now for ambiguity about the Right's commitment to national unity. After May 1980, the bourgeoisie had to stand up and be counted. spelled out clearly that this

progressive mainstream of the 'Generation of '44'

—

La Prensa: Mouthpiece for Reaction

A

parallel split

developed simultaneously

in the

media, appropriately enough

over the future of the newspaper which Pedro Joaquin

— La Prensa. La Prensa ory attitudes to the

Chamorro had edited

owned by the Chamorro family, and its contradictnine months of the Revolution very much mirrored

is

first

the political differences at the heart of the family: the conservative general

manager Jaime, the progressive pro-FSLN editor Xavier, and the aggressively right-wing son Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Barrios, who best typifies the new political drift of La Prensa since April 1980. 'I've defended freedom of speech,' he told an interviewer in February 1980. 'They [the FSLN] say I defend the freedom of the bourgeois press. think that's best — their freedom of speech is 100% controlled, a freedom directed at Marxifying the country '* and turning the people into sheep I

.

.

.

343

The People

in

Power

Although the great majority of the journalists, like Danilo Aguirre and Pablo Emilio Barreto, were politically sympathetic to Xavier Chamorro, La Prensa was from the beginning a natural outlet for the views of the bourgeoisie, and the paper published in full (usually as paid advertising space)

COSEP, the PCD and other right-wing parties. The news pages, meanwhile, presented a view of the world heavily coloured by the Western news agencies. All this contrasted sharply with the strongly pro-government editorials, which gave support for the Literacy Crusade, praised the government's handling of the CAUS strikes and hailed each major statement by foreign

the unity talks of progressive parties as a 'transcendental step forward'.

From March onwards,

of emphasis was apparent. Front-page up, and the foreign page gave enthusiastic reports of the 'reforms' of the Salvadorean military/Christian Democrat Junta. The news content in general ceased to represent the majority view oi La /Ve/tsa's journalists. coverage of

The

a

major

shift

MDN and other right-wing meetings was stepped

was precipitated by union action on 19 April. La demands for a convenio colectivo with management, including a call for formal union representation on the paper's editorial council. Xavier Chamorro supported the workers' demands, thereby bringing the family polemic into the open, and the remaining members of the board decided that the time was ripe to fire him. La Prensa printed its final edition on 20 April. At lunchtime that day, with the following morning's edition already set up, two board members arrived with a 'last minute news story'. It contained the news of Xavier Chamorro 's 'resignation', categorically denied by the editor himself. The union (STLP) immediately called a strike to demand his reinstatement. The STLP communique, delivered by its president Trinidad Vasquez, noted that the strike had nothing to do with the union's demands the previous day. The only question at issue was the dismissal of Xavier, which the workers described as 'the final chapter in a series of pressures, threats and insults which members of the board have been hurling at him for several months'. They declared, too, that the editor represented, together with Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, 'the central pillar of our newspaper, in all its technical, intellectual and moral aspects'. Finally, they condemned the activities of newly appointed board members who were inevitable split

Prensa's

work

force presented

breaking the traditions oi La Prensa as a progressive newspaper, 'people who never wrote a word against Somoza and now furiously attack the Revolution'. Despite the intervention of Labour Minister, Virgilio Godoy, and three

members of

the

FSLN

National Directorate,

Chamorro, the management proved fray, accusing the striking pluralist character

at

the request of Violeta de

intransigent.

COSEP

threw

itself into the

workers of 'seriously endangering the free and

of our Revolution'. The strike went on.

On

the 28th,

Xavier Chamorro gave a press conference to announce that he had withdrawn his shares in La Prensa and would use them to start up a new paper. 95% of

La Prensa's work force would be joining him to found El Nuevo Diario, which would be run as a cooperative with full worker participation in editorial decisions.

344

The Threat of Counter-Revolution It

tookLaPrensa

a

month

new work force which would ElNuevo Diario. it has maintained

to assemble a

As

the paper back on to the streets.

for

bring a line

of critical support for the Revolution, and has used its own editorials to attack La /Ye/75fl for betraying the traditionsof Pedro Joaquin Chamorro: the claim that

La Prensa embodied

falsehood, a great

cismo

lie,

was denounced

the tradition

because the truth

as journalists, at the risk

of our

is

as 'an

that those of use

lives, are

those

immense historical who fought Somo-

who now produce

El

Nuevo Diario.'^'^ La Prensa, meanwhile, is on a collision course with the FSLN. New press laws prohibit the publication of economic stories which

are

not supported by official government statistics, after a rash of rumours about shortages and production shortfalls. These are only the start of the conflict, however. Humberto Ortega repeated that press freedom was not to be confused with the riglit to print counter-revolutionary propaganda: 'We are sure that, if this newspaper continues to behave as it has done, lending itself to the most reactionary domestic and foreign interests, the Nicaraguan people will make it into a paper read only by those who line up with the counter-revolution. But if it seriously damages the revolutionary process, the Junta will take '^^ legal steps to control the license which masquerades as press freedom. Ortega's optimism about La Prensa's declining sales is perhaps ill-founded. The paper has a well-established and efficient distribution network and continues to outsell both Barricada and El Nuevo Diario. Few Nicaraguans buy more than one daily paper, La Pre^isfl's traditional values are deeply ingrained in readers' minds, and the hatred of Somoz2i\ Novedades has left a strong subconscious resistance to official government newspapers. Furthermore, Nicaragua's papers are published at different times of the day: La

Prensa in the early moxmng. El Nuevo Diario at \\\r\c\\X'\mQ Barricada in midafternoon. La Prensa is aware of these advantages, and has used them as the ,

an increasingly subtle ideological fight against the FSLN. Its its role in a deepening class struggle, chillingly recall those of El Mercurio before the Chilean coup and the Jamaican Daily Gleaner in the basis for

techniques, and

months leading up

much

to Michael Manley's election defeat. These techniques go

further than acting as a simple mouthpiece for right-wing views.

extend through lay-out juxtaposition of ing trivial incidents

which

will reinforce

information. Foreign news coverage

is

stories, use

They

of pictures, sensationalis-

an ideological position, printing

highly selective,

portray a 'free world' under threat from Marxism.

its

false

main aim to

Its letters

pages are

full

of

no attempt at authentication. Rumours and distorted stories about the Sandinista mass organisations, and above all the armed forces, are the daily fare o{ La I^ensa\ front page, with the clear object of undermining public confidence in the institutions created by the FSLN.^' This campaign of provocation — what Galeano called 'the bacteriological warfare of the Right'^^ — has so far met with an angry but measured response from the FSLN, which realises perfectly well the dangers of being goaded into action which could be portrayed as an attack on press freedom. attacks on the Revolution, with

But

as long as

assault

La Prensa continues,

on the new society and

it

acts as the frontline for the right-wing

as the best single focus for uniting the divided

345

The People

Power

in

factions of the bourgeoisie.

The Right

Rallying

The

parties of the Right have

now abandoned

their crude early tactic of

building political support by masquerading as Sandinistas, an approach which

membership and brought a premature confrontation with months immediately following the war, the name 'Sandinista' was adopted haphazardly by salesmen, shopkeepers and entrepreneurs, sometimes naively and sometimes with clearly ulterior motives. The Social Demoadded the

little

FSLN.

crat Party

to their

In the

(PSD),

in particular, incurred the

wrath of the

FSLN by

its

attempts to add the word 'Sandinista' to its title: These groups now say they defend the legacy of the General of Free Men, Augusto Cesar Sandino. When they ought to have taken this name they did not, because they knew a bullet would await them if they had resisted during the struggle. The FSLN did not shrink from the bullets of the Somoza regime. '^^ The Frente followed this up with a decree on 13 September 1979 prohibiting the use of the name 'Sandinista' by anyone but the FSLN itself, its members and related organisations. Briefly the bourgeoisie

fought back, with

'party-state confusion' could be avoided

'if

COSEP

claiming that the

the decree could be suspended

.

.

.

[and instead] making this adjective a generic term denoting nationality and

applying to

A

all

those groups

different approach

is

who

fought against the dictatorship.'^"*

dictated today.

The period

since

May 1980

has

seen intense efforts by each of the bourgeois parties to establish a solid

moving into unpoliticised areas, each has seen membership grow, and while none of the parties is large, both the MDN and PCD have shown signs of building a useful social base. Despite their growth, it is still the economic interest group — COSEP — which remains the dominant voice of the bourgeoisie, and the Frente has taken care to prolong this state of affairs by directing its dialogue with the private sector at COSEP, rather than at any of the right-wing parties. It was COSEP, for example, which was called on to form a commission with the FSLN to dicsuss the political situation in the wake of the Robelo resignation. COSEP speaks as a united institution on behalf of its six-member organisations, but there is no doubt that some divergence exists among these six groups over the strategy which ought to be adopted against the FSLN. The big landowners of UPANIC are very different in class character from the urban bosses of the Chamber of Construction or the young entrepreneurs of INDE. INDE and the Chamber of Commerce would be very reluctant to ally themselves with any armed anti-Sandinista project. Their battles have been 'civic' ones designed to undermine state institutions like ENABAS. The Chamber of Commerce has attacked ENABAS for food shortages and set up the parallel national party structure. Often its

private distribution agency

ACAPROBAMA. INDE

has sponsored

cooperatives parallel to those of the state, using outlets like the Cooperativa El

Socorro

346

in

Diriamba to accumulate private sector profits and win over

I

The Threat of Counter-Revolution unorganised small traders.

To a large extent, UPANIC represents the older members are in daily confrontation with the

traditions of rural power. Its

programme, and several have been charged and convicted of active collaboration with terrorist bands of former National Guardsmen. Cattle ranchers, in particular, have frequently been implicated. Interestingly, agrarian reform

it was Jorge Salazar, president of UPANIC. who became COSEP's most vocal spokesman in recent months on the 'crisis of relations' between the private sector and the FSLN.2^

Of

the parties, the

discontent, though

it

MDN

remains the

likeliest

focus of private sector

has failed to provide the effective leadership which

Robelo aspires to. FSLN propaganda has tried with some success to associate Robelo with Somoza in picking up the fallen banner of crude antiCommunism, and the content of Robelo's speeches since his resignation has shown the accuracy of this. The first — and still most notorious — was a speech in Matiguas on 10 May. The choice of location could hardly have been accidental. Matiguas is a small town in the interior of Matagalpa, settled during the 1970s as part of Somoza 's counter-insurgency campaign and a traditional centre of support for the dictatorship. Here, Robelo attacked the Literacy Crusade, then in its sixth week, as 'Communist' (the area around Matiguas is 70% illiterate). The Council of State, he repeated, was 'totalitarian', and the MDN was determined to remain 'openly opposed to the reign of terror which Communism implants in countries which it oppresses, submitting them to an intolerable police state. '^^ Does this mean that the MDN would happily use arms to get rid of what they now see as a regime moving rapidly towards 'Communist dictatorship'? Individual MDN members have been inplicated in armed plots, but the party itself has issued strong condemnations of armed raids like that on QuOali in August, and Robelo himself continues to hold up countries like Costa Rica and Venezuela as his ideal. There are strong hints that the MDN and PCD power bases are beginning to overlap. Although Robelo disclaimed any intention of linking up with the Democratic Conservatives when he led his party out of the Patriotic Front of the Revolution, the in traditional

MDN has managed

to plan meetings

Conservative strongholds such as the departamento of Granada.

The PCD, meanwhile, has

built up a national structure around regional Granada, Boaco, Carazo, Rivas, Masaya, Bluefields and Matagalpa. It boasts of its ability to attract 500 peasant supporters to its meetings in the remote rural zone of Nueva Guinea, and well-armed military training camps and anti-Communist propaganda schools are believed to exist in the same area, operated by former National Guardsmen and even some deserters from the FSLN's Frente Sur. Internally, the party is still at odds. Many

committees

PCD

in

supporters, headed by Cruz and Cordova Rivas, remain inside the

government,

still

an important area of understanding between the FSLN and on the other extreme of the party, the classic language

the private sector. But

of

Somocismo

is

common. One Diriamba delegate to a PCD conference like this when asked his attitude to the FSLN:

in

Chinandega reacted

347

The People

in

Power

Communism!

my

Totalitarianism! That's what

friend. This country

is

we have

in

Communism:

overrun with

Russians, Cubans, East Germans, the whole red horde

Nicaragua now, of

its full .

.

.

And nobody

what Nicaragua wants. It's part of the international Communist conspiracy and it's all being imposed from above. Nobody has any choice, there's no freedom any more. No-one knows what is going on except the comandantes. It's all being done in secret. But let me tell you one thing. We're going to smash this Communist vermin into the ground, by whatever means necessary, like the true realises.

This

machos we

Any sive

isn't

are.^^

right-wing party

tone

is

is

likely to

reaching the

PCD

ence in Chinandega on 3 August,

FSLN: 'We

attack on the for another It is

.

.

.

hard to see

have members like

this,

but the new aggres-

leadership too. At the same regional confer-

PCD

Coordinator Clemente Guido led the

did not fight to exchange one military dictatorship

Nicaragua has not yet begun to see the door to democracy. '^^ how much longer the PCD can reconcile this kind of attitude

its members in the Junta. The Social Christians have a roughly similar strength to the PCD. The PSC was part of the Latin American wave of Christian Democracy. Founded in 1957, it built up a certain strength among the middle class and the peasantry, but saw much of this eroded with the breakaway of its progressive wing to form the PPSC. The Social Christians' main hope of influence lies not only in

with the presence of two of

building the party within Nicaragua but in exploiting

its

valuable interna-

Democracy. Venezuela and Costa Rica are since both governments have shifted their support

tional alliances with Christian

useful friends, especially

away from

US

the Nicaraguan Junta to follow a line close to that of the

State Department, especially in giving unconditional support to the military/ Christian

Democrat Junta

in El Salvador.

enjoys in the trade unions through the

The

relative strength

CTN,and

which

CLAT, also gives the Social Christians a degree of leverage. The PSD is the youngest and most insignificant of the right-wing Formed on an openly

it

regionally through the

parties.

on 23 September, 1979, it is shunned by international Social Democracy, and despite the massive publicity afforded to it by La Prensa managed to draw only 200 supporters to

its

anti-Sandinista platform

inaugural rally. In presenting itself as a reformist party under the slogan

'Sandinismo

Si,

Comunismo No\ uncannily similar to ex-president Urcuyo's Comunismo No' it has offered little

cry from Guatemala of 'Somocismo No,

which the

MDN cannot already provide.

Its

guiding lights are older

Conservative dissidents from the generation involved

in the

Olama y Los

Mollejones invasion and the Jinotepe-Diriamba barracks attacks of the 1950s, is no evidence that it, or the PSC, has been actively involved in any armed initiative against the FSLN. The Frente's announcement of an extension to the agrarian reform programme on 19 July, the defiance of right-wing calls for elections and the

but there

suggestions that Nicaragua will

348

move

closer in 1981 towards planned

I

The Threat of Counter-Revolution centralisation of the

the face of a

still

economy

indicate the Sandinistas' sense of strength in

disarrayed bourgeoisie. In the words of

Comandante Victor

Tirado of the National Directorate: 'The neo-Somocistas are anti-government, anti-Frente Sandinista; in a word, they are pro-nothing, because they lack any solid and consistent political ideas or programmes. Up to now, all they have done is to unleash campaigns of rumours, insults and gossip against the Sandinista Government. But where are their practical proposals for dealing with the problems of unemployment, illiteracy, health care and social inequalities? Where is their cooperation, where have they taken any action to provide solutions? All that the right-wing parties

have

in

common

is

a

crude and virulent anti-

Communism, and the most skeletal of programmatic agreements — the demand for elections, a weighting of the economic system in favour of private enterprise. They have come up with no common tactical line. Bourgeois political futility

a

commentators

like

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Barrios touch on the

of the right-wing parties remaining divided; Alfonso Robelo attends

conference

in

Panama with

leaders of the

PSD. But

this

is

as far as

it

has

gone.

The question implicit in this analysis of the right-wing parties is to what would now resort to change the government. The debate over elections and the future configuration of the state has become a battle which goes far beyond demands for a simple modification of the existing balance of power. In comparing the Frente with Somoza, describing Sandinista power as lengths they

a totalitarian military dictatorship, the right-wing bourgeoisie

accusing the

FSLN

of illegitimacy.

It is

is

openly

also tacitly declaring that the changes

means are closed off. The initial was an attempt to wring economic concessions and win a larger slice of state power. From there, it has become a rejection of the very basis of the Sandinista state. Further economic sabotage is likely only to provoke further (if at this stage reluctant) nationalisation. The logical of restoring capitalist rule by

*civic'

resistance of the private sector

next step

is

to see private sector revolt as part of a strategy to overthrow the

Sandinista state. Alfonso Robelo, and others like him, declare that they want

and there was initially no reason to doubt But the FSLN will not be deflected from its course by internal pressure. Other more powerful interests outside Nicaragua wish to see Sandinismo overthrown, and this is the context in which the actions of the Right should be seen. When Robelo withdrew from the Junta, a mass demonstration in the Plaza de la Revolucion brought a sea of banners denouncing him as 'traitor' or *Somocista'. Those which read 'Robelo — Made in USA' were probably closest to the mark. to see a Costa Rica in Nicaragua, their sincerity.

349

The People

in

Power

The Central American Dimension Regional Terrorism

On

21 May, 1980, eleven days after Robelo's inflammatory speech in Matiguas, Georgino Andrade - a young peasant CDS coordinator, militiaman and Literacy Commission representative for the village of El Mancital in Chinandega - was seized by a right-wing gang, dragged into a cornfield, tortured for five hours and finally killed. Pedro Rafael Pavon, one of the murderers, received a thirtyyear jail sentence, the maximum permitted under Nicaraguan law. He told the court that Georgino had been killed 'because he was a Communist'. All those like Robelo, who raise the banner of anti-Communism, said Tomas Borge at a rally to honour the dead brigadista, 'are the assassins of Georgino Andrade'.^^ Brigadistas returning home from the Crusade in August had lost seven of their numbers in right-wing sniper attacks. The worst incident came on 30 July when an armed gang of 25 men fired on a Literacy Crusade boat from the Honduran Bank of the Rio Coco, killing three people and wounding three more. Those returning from the largely unprotected northern mountains told of the hostile propaganda put about by some local landowners, but reaffirmed their own resolve to carry on in the face of threats broadcast from the Somocista radio station Volveremos inside Honduras. Also in May, a number of Boaco ranchers, including people associated with COSEP, were arrested on charges of arming and sheltering right-wing terrorists of the newly formed Fuerzas Armadas Democraticas (FAD). The National Guard might have been destroyed as an arm of the Nicaraguan state, but enough of its members escaped to make it a serious threat, and the tradition of the right-wing death squad is well-rooted in Central America. The Ministry of the Interior has made no attempt to play down the threat posed by these groups. In July, it emphasised the need to continue improving the technical and political capacity of State Security and reviewed some recent successes against the FAD and the Fuerzas Armadas Anti-Communistas (FARAC). Terrorist raids had escalated during July with agricultural installations in the north and west of the country a particular target. But the FSLM had dismantled an important band operating around Chinandega and Somoto, another led by former National Guard sergeant Santos Betanco in the region of Los Calpules, across from the Honduran border town of Danli, and several smaller groups in Matagalpa.^^ The phrase 'death squad' should not suggest that groups like the FAD and the FARAC operate on their own account. The aim of their attacks is not random terrorism, but a concerted effort to destabilise Nicaragua, provoke border incidents, provide pretexts for military intervention and prepare perhaps for a full-scale invasion at the right time. Captured FAD members have admitted receiving active support from the Honduran armed forces. The Honduran military may be split, but despite the progressive sympathies of some younger ,

,

,

officersandtheelection victory of the Liberal Party

in

April 1980, the hardline

military Right around General Policarpo Paz Garcia remains in control and

from the United States. In November 1979, Honduran DIN arrested two Nicaraguan Embassy staff in

receives military assistance

police of the

350

secret

The Threat of Counter Revolution Tegucigalpa and beat them up, charging them with espionage. At this point,

Managua's friendly relations with the short-lived reformist Junta which had replaced General Carlos Humberto Romero in October were useful, and the two governments issued a joint statement deploring the 'irresponsible attitude of groups in the Central American region who are trying to create artificial conflicts with the new Nicaragua'. But when the Salvadorean Junta collapsed only ten weeks later, Nicaragua was once more isolated and Honduran provocation continued at such a pitch that the Sandinista Air Force remained on almost permanent alert during the middle months of 1980. Aside from the military implications, aggression by Nicaragua's northern neighbours has damaged the declared intention of Plan 80 to build on existing bilateral trading agreements with Honduras and multilateral agreements with El Salvador and Guatemala, and the collapse of the Dalvadorean economy in 1980 has reduced the Central American Common Market to a shambles. The military regimes of Central America are terrified by the boost which their own guerrilla and popular organisations have been given by the Sandinista Revolution. In Guatemala, the country's four guerrilla groups have gained combat strength and popular support in the majority Indian population and the Democratic Front Against Repression (FDCR) has built a unified bloc of political parties, civic groups and labour organisations. In El Salvador, the threat to the Right was even more immediate. The popular organisations of the Left, which had grown steadily since their formation in the mid-1970s, came together at the beginning of 1980 to form the Revolutionary Coordination of the Masses (CRM) and were joined by the Salvadorean Communist Party. Within three months, their military wings had overcome the historic divisions of the country's guerrilla movement to form a joint military command and the mass organisations had joined with Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and the progressive Church to form the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR), which laid claim to support from at least 80% of the Salvadorean people. Given the previous fractured state of the Salvadorean Left, it was arguably an even more remarkable achievement than the creation of Nicaragua's National Patriotic Front under FSLN leadership in 1979. The response of the region's ^orz'/c regimes was an internal military clampdown financed by the USA, and an anti-Communist propaganda war against the Nicaraguan Revolution, in which the Salvadorean, Honduran and Guatemalan press fed its readers with a regular diet of stories of alleged Sandinista atrocities, mass executions and brainwashing of the people.

American Defence Council CONDECA split between Honduras and El Salvador still unhealed. A new military strategy was desperately required by the USA and its regional allies. It was inevitable that the leadership of any new programme of regional military containment should pass to Guatemala; the Salvadorean regime was staggering, Honduras was too weak. Guatemala would be the last bastion of the old-style Central American Right; it had, after all, been like Somoza's second home. While Guatemala With the

fell

apart,

FSLN

its

victory, the Central

nerve centre removed, and the ten-year-old

351

The People

in

Power

Communism', Honduras and had to be brought together again. Within this strategy, the remnants of Somoza's National Guard became a crucial element, directed from Guatemala City by Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero, the dictator's son, and Pablo Emilio Salazar ('Comandante Bravo'). As many as 3,000 former Guardsmen were believed to have joined the regular armies or right-wing paramilitary forces of Guatemala and El Salvador, with almost as many again in camps along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. Guatemala City serves as headquarters for the National Guard's Frente Patriotico Anti-Comunista (FREPA), the terrorist group which claimed responsibility for a light-plane attack on the Sandinista barracks in Leon and bombings of the Nicaraguan embassies in San Salvador and the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, during the July 1980 anniversary celebrations. Joint military operations in the region, directed principally at destroying the Left in El Salvador, were intensified. The presence of Salvadorean and Guatemalan troops at the side of Somoza in the Nicaraguan conflict a year before pales into insignificance took

its

place at the head of the 'drive against

El Salvador

beside the

new

levels

of military cooperation,

Honduras has been unduly neglected in most analysis of the new military containment, but its role is a vital one. Although the Honduran Left remains weak, the military government of Policarpo Paz Garcia was quick to recognise that its own survival was directly threatened by the fires around it. Accordingly, Paz Garcia visited Washington in March 1980, and his talks with the Carter administration were rapidly rewarded with $3.9 million worth of lethal military equipment. Washington made it clear that the Honduran military were expected to become 'a bulwark of anti-Communism against the pressures of popular revolt'. ^^ Old resentments against El Salvador became secondary in the face of this popular revolt, and press reports soon called attention to the brutal consequences of joint operations between the Honduran and Salvadorean military. These estimated that between 325 and 750 Salvadorean peasants had been massacred while trying to escape from counterinsurgency operations into Honduras, trapped on the banks of the Rio Sumpul which forms the border between the two countries by a human wall of Honduran troops. General Paz Garcia had authorised the free use of Honduran territory by Guatemalan troops as well. There is nothing extraordinary in this,' commented a high-ranking member of the Honduran armed forces. 'Guatemalan soldiers can enter and leave Honduras as and when they please. It's already a matter of standard practice.

The Central American Right did not need

'^^

to wait for the Reagan election campaign for the military suppression of the Left. The Carter Administration, though beset by foreign policy splits between the White House, State Department and Pentagon, had already thrown in its lot with the Right in its last six months of office, sunk as it now was in the renewed throes of a Cold War mentality in the wake of Nicaragua, Iran and Afghanistan. To many observers within the Administration itself, Carter had ^^ already laid the foundations for the expected hard-line of the Reagan years, by giving in during the last weeks of his administration to the position of to launch

352

its

The Threat of Counter-Revolution those like National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brezinski,

who

sought a

military solution in Central America, and overriding the lingering

concerns of Secretary of State

rights

Edmund Muskie and

human

other Washington

liberals.

From

Carter to Reagan: The Options for the Nicaraguan Right The FSLN needs the victory of the popular forces in El Salvador, and since the precipitate collapse of the short-lived reformist Junta which took power there in October 1979, it has given its full and vocal solidarity to the FDR and the unified guerrilla forces who, in the summer of 1980, adopted the name 'Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion National' (FMLN), finding in Marti a historical figure embodying the same nationalist aspirations as

Sandino. But while the solidarity of the Nicaraguan people with the Salvadorean struggle is absolute, the FSLN and Government of National Reconstruction have had to exercise caution, aware of the dangers of any

and they have given considerable publicity combatants prevented by the government from leaving to fight alongside the FMLN. Daniel Ortega had already outlined the risks in a speech to the United Nations even before the fall of the Romero dictatorvisible

involvement

in El Salvador,

to cases of Nicaraguan

ship in Salvador in 1979:

Some North American

representatives claim to have been informed by

Government of El Salvador and by Salvadorean businessmen we Sandinistas are mounting military operations in that country

the

that to

fall of the regime. Senator Stone, for example, asserts and leaps to the defence of Salvadorean democracy. And he says that he will demand greater vigilance over Nicaragua by the United States Government. We see all this as a provocation: to justify economic, political and even military pressure against Nicaragua.^

bring about the this

Just as the Frente needs the breathing space which

it

will gain

victory of the Left in El Salvador, so the Nicaraguan Right

from the

now depends on

defeat. The most influential sectors of the local bourgeoisie, including Alfonso Robelo, would ideally have liked the same solution for Central America as envisaged by the liberals in the Carter State Department: rule by a pro-US 'democratic centre', a model which Washington briefly hoped the October 1979 coup might bring about in El Salvador. That model, which had promised agrarian reform and respect for human rights, causing the Carter Administration to breathe a large sigh of relief and restore economic and military assistance, lasted for only three months, unable to challenge the real power in the country wielded by the murderous military right-wing its

establishment.^^

and the effective extinction of the 'democratic centre' as a America and the Caribbean, ushered in policies which embodied all the schizophrenia of the Carter years, a mixture of reform and repression to counter the threat of revolution in the USA's own Its failure,

political species in Central

353

The People

in

Power

traditional backyard. Schizophrenia yes, but

came down on

one which invariably and

fatally

the side of repression. In the Caribbean especially, this

involved the rapid dismantling of an incipient anti-imperialist bloc headed by

Jamaica, Grenada and Nicaragua, and the reassertion of the USA's traditional military rights over its mare nostrum by the creation of a Florida-based

brought rapid deployment exercises for US troops Panama Canal Zone and the naval manoeuvres of Solid Shield 80. For Cuba, it entailed renewed US hostility, with allegations of Soviet combat brigades on the island (quickly retracted when proven to be groundless), the mock invasion of the American base at military task-force.

It

stationed in Puerto Rico and the

the US still maintains in defiance of Cuban sovereignty) major propaganda exercise over the Cuban refugee exodus of April 1980. It has meant the isolation of the tiny levolutionary island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean, with US pressure on other Western governments not to provide aid to build an international airport on the island - on the grounds that it would be used as a Cuban staging-post. In Jamaica, the victim was the social democratic government of Michael Manley, destabilised by the CIA and defeated by the right-wing Edward Seaga who promised a return to free market capitalism and the expulsion of all Cuban personnel on the island. Nor did the smallest islands escape, with Barbados sending troops to quell a local revolt in St. Vincent, left-wing politicians subverted in tiny St. Lucia, and post-hurricane aid for Dominica withheld until Prime Minister Oliver Seraphine sacked left-wing members of his Cabinet. ^^ 'The United States and the Caribbean have come to understand each other much better,' noted US Ambassador Sally Shelton in Barbados.^^ The consolidation of an antiCuban axis, with Barbados and Jamaica as twin poles and Venezuela as regional overseer, is something which Carter may look back on as one of his minor but important 'successes'. In El Salvador, the USA tried during 1980 to weave reform and repression into a single package, with nationalisation of the banks and an agrarian reform programme carried out to a background of the Vietnamisation of the countryside, the creation of 'strategic hamlets' and 'free-fire zones', masterminded by US official Roy Prosterman who a decade earlier had put together something similar for the Thieu regime in Saigon. The strategy depended on the credibility of defending a 'democratic centre' supposedly trapped between the uncontrolled violence of the extreme Right and the Communist terrorism of the Left. In practice, it meant propping up a regime whose shreds of a popular base disappeared with the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero by right-wing gunmen in March 1980, through regular transfusions of economic and 'non-lethal' military aid, while the security forces set about annihilating the Left and Centre. Only weeks before his departure from the White House, Carter accepted the inevitable consequences of his policies, and restored US supplies of 'lethal' military hardware. By then, many senior members of the outgoing administration had refused to go on accepting the Right-Left -Centre myth, and stated clearly that such an impression had only been created by largescale US Government manipulation of the national and

Guantanamo (which and

354

a

The Threat of Counter-Revolution international media. ^^

Commenting on the overwhelming proportion of trade among the 10,000 dead in El Salvador during

unionists and peasant activists

1980, one State Department official asked wryly: 'Do you think the Left '^^ going in for a great collective suicide? The Salvadorean model of limited social reforms and military containment had manifestly failed in less than a year. The agrarian reform programme, designed as much as anything to win some limited power base for the is

Christian

Democrat rump

in the

primarily at the richer peasants

San Salvador Junta by directing

uncommitted

itself

to the popular organisations,"*^

has done nothing to alter fundamental patterns of land tenure, and the repre-

which accompanied its early stages has left the Salvadorean countryside wasteland of burnt-out farmhouses controlled by an ever stronger and more

ssion a

popular Left. While allowing this to go on unchecked, the Carter Administration continued to agonise over the options remaining for the US Government and the Central American bourgeoisie. There were two, and both were cited in a July 1980 analysis by the Latin America Weekly Report. On one hand, the US military establishment argued that Central America was now a 'Soviet target', in terms which clearly justified United States support for any Central American regime as long as it was anti-Communist. The alternative was to 'allow the Left to come in from the cold',"** the logic of that being to sit back and allow the expansion of Nicaragua's revolutionary democracy. It is extra-

ordinary in retrospect that such arguments were

still

taking place in

Washington's tortured foreign policy conscience as late as July 1980, when the die had already been clearly cast — military aid to Honduras, repression in El Salvador, subversion and militarisation of the Caribbean. Months before Reagan set foot in the White House, the

USA

had committed

itself to

holding the line against any repeats of the Nicaraguan Revolution. This anti-Communist option, which remained to be formalised with the Republican presidential victory in November 1980, is the one which now faces Robelo and his ilk. They have already shown clearly enough that they reject the consequences of '\Q\i\ng Sandinismo in from the cold', and the National Guard leadership in exile is not unaware of this. Although the private fantasies of

some

sectors of the

cipal right-wing terrorist

groups

FAD, FREPA and FARAC - the three prin— may run to reinstating Somocismo, the

Guard fully recognise the existing balance of forces Somocismo is not an option for them, unless the whole of

leadership of the National

within Nicaragua.

Central America were to be turned into another intervention by the

promoted

USA, and

as the military

the remains of the

instrument

—

Vietnam by direct military Guard be plausibly

indeed the only instrument

—

of a

Sandinismo by any other means. But new identity for the National Guard which breaks

hostile bourgeoisie unable to rid \Xse\f of this involves projecting a

with forty-five years of historical association with the Somoza dynasty. The Nicaraguan middle class retains a deep and genuine hatred for Somoza and his military machine, yet that, ultimately, only

convergence

is

it has no other armed force available, and recognises armed force will dent Sandinismo in Nicaragua. The

a long shot,

but

it is

not impossible as class polarisation

in

355

The People

in

Power

Nicaragua deepens.

The

first

chilling prospect.

It is a

hints of such a convergence

Robelo's anti-Communist

rally in

came

in

May

1980. Immediately after

Matiguas, Radio Volveremos in Honduras

began to broadcast propaganda in support of Robelo. On the night of 26 May, an armed band of twenty right-wingers attacked the TELCOR communications office in the small village of San Jose de los Remates in the departamento of Boaco, north-east of Managua. They then surrounded the Sandinista police station, announced that Boaco had fallen to insurgents, and opened fire. In the ensuing four-hour gun battle in driving rain, one policeman died. Such incidents are not uncommon in the mountainous interior, but this time there was a new element. The survivors reported that the terrorist group had launched their attack to shouts of 'Viva Robelo! We don't want Communism here'. The new 'Somocista-Robelistas"*^ have gained sympathy from the right-wing bourgeoisie as evidence grows of their links with local landowners and businessmen. After the arrest of nineteen members

FAD in Boaco, the Nicaraguan Bishops' Conference expressed its disand La Prensa launched a feverish campaign accusing the FSLN of repression against the private sector. When the nineteen Boaco counter-revolutionaries were placed on trial on 9 August, it emerged that twelve of their number were landowners and merchants. Former Guardsmen Have also collaborated in large-scale cattle smuggling across the Honduran border, first from private ranches in collusion with their owners, and then from INRA farms. MIDA estimates that up to 300,000 of the country's 2 million head of cattle have been lost in this way. While the FSLN fails to consolidate its support in remote rural areas of the north and east, and while the old relations of production are not touched by INRA in these backward areas, the Right will also be able to recruit with some success among local peasants. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed this: of the quiet,

The

leaders of these counter-revolutionary groups, the

FARAC,

many the new

recruited

peasants for their operations.

FAD They

and the told the

Sandinista Government did not believe in God campesinos that and would steal their farmlands. The campesinos, ignorant of politics, Their other members are former Somocista believed their lies .

.

.

Guardsmen, common criminals and embittered former members of the Sandinista armed forces. According to them, these counter-revolutionary organisations stand for a democratic regime 'without

Communism'."*^ If the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie paid close attention to the activities of these groups and their gradual shedding of a Somocista identity, it also waited anxiously for the results of the November 1980 US presidential elections. Although the Carter Administration had set the pattern of support for the

Right, there were still many Central American soldiers and right-wing businessmen who regarded Carter's Washington as 'tainted by Communism', and the terrorist Right - whether in the Presidential Palace in Guatemala

356

The Threat of Counter-Revolution

— must regard a Reagan victory as back of the minds of the Nicaraguan private sector was the likelihood of Republican economic sanctions against the Sandinista Government and even a trade embargo, although 'this v^'ould be more difficult for the USA to impose than in the case of Cuba. Nicaragua's export markets and commodities are more diverse than those of Cuba. At the same time, an embargo on sales to Nicaragua could affect industrial inputs and cut the level of luxury imports even more drastically than the government's taxes on luxury consumption. This would be against private sector interests, which presumably the USA would be interested in bolstering.'^ At the same time, the private sector could hardly have missed the signal from the Republican Party in its Platform on Latin America, unveiled at the Party Convention in Detroit in July 1980, a week before the anniversary of the Revolution: 'We deplore the Marxist Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua and the Marxist attempts to destabilise El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. We do not support United States assistance to any Marxist governments in City or in the border camps of Honduras a green light. Also in the

we oppose the Carter Administration's aid programme government of Nicaragua. However, we will support the efforts of the Nicaraguan people to establish a free and independent government.' Whether it welcomed the prospect of a Reagan victory or harked back nostalgically to the democratising mid-term policies of Carter, the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie realised that if the threats implicit in the Republican programme were carried out, it would find itself merely a bit player in a much larger Central American drama. this

hemisphere, and

for the

Notes 1

on possible CIA destabilisation tactics in Nicaragua, Philip Agee noted that 'strikes in key industries, promoted by the CIA and supported by local and international unions, could impede reconstruction and create a climate of tension' (retranslation from the Spanish version in El Trabajador, March 980). These campaigns are most actively represented by the editorial line of In his article

1

1

2.

La Prensa

since April 1980, three privately

owned Managua

radio

and successive communiques and proclamations from the private enterprise group COSEP. The tactics of ideological warfare by the Right were dealt with extensively by Carlos Nunez, in a speech to students of journalism at the National Autonomous University (UNAN), reprinted -as La Reaccion y sus Ejes de Enfrentamiento Ideologico, Managua, SENAPEP, Serie Orientacion Sandinista, No. 17, 1980. Most accounts of the Simon Bolivar Brigade episode are notoriously unreliable. The majority of Western press reports have been confused about the exact political origins of the Brigade, referring to it merely as 'Trotskyist' or Maoist\ Most left-wing commentaries on the other hand have sought to defend one or other sectarian position of their respective stations,

3.

4.

357

The People

in

authors.

Power

The

Launches Propaganda Drive Against September 1979 edition oi Intercontinental Press,

article 'Imperialism

Sandinistas', in the 3

while admittedly tendencious, probably offers an account of events which is as factually correct as any. 5. FSLN Party Organisation Secretary Carlos Carrion, in Barricada, 28 January 1980. 6. This description of events around the Frente Obrero strikes is based on conversation with Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director oi Barricada, interviews with trade unionists and accounts in both Barricada and La Prensa, all in February 1980. 7. Barricada, 3 February 1980. 8. Barricada, 28 January 1980. 9. FSLN Direccion Nacional, Ayer, Unidad Nacional para lograr el Triunfo. Hoy, Unidad Nacional para mantener la Victoria, communique to the people of Nicaragua, 23 April 1

0.

UT>^,ldeario Politico (Managua, Editorial Aleman, January

1

980)

p. 1.

11. Ibid., p. 10.

12. Ibid., p. 12.

LaPrensa, 10 March 1980. LaPrensa, 12 March 1980. 15. 'Robelo makes his Bid to lead the Private Sector Backlash' in Latin America Weekly Report, 2 May 1980. 16. Barricada, 23 April 1980. 17. Barricada, 20 May 1980. 18. Interview with Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Barrios of La Prensa, Managua, February 1980 (used by kind permission of Reggie Norton). 13. 14.

20.

Nuevo Diario, editoria], 11 July 1980. Humberto Ortega, speaking on Radio Sandino's

2

programme, 10 July 1980. For a detailed and well-documented report on La Prensa's

19. El

1

.

'Linea Directa' tactics, see

Intercontinental Press, 24 November 1980. 22. Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America, (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1974) p. 160. 23. Statement by FSLN representatives in West Germany, September 1979. 24. COSEP Communique, 14 November 1979. 25. In November 1980, after the completion of this text, Jorge Salazar was killed in an exchange of fire with Sandinista security forces near Managua. He was believed to have been carrying arms in connection with a plot to overthrow the government. A number of senior figures within COSEP were subsequently implicated in this plan. 26. LaPrensa, 11 May 1980. 27. Interview with Dr Raul Estrada of the Democratic Conservative Party, Managua, August 1980. 28. LaPrensa, 4 August 1980. 29. Barricada, 24 May 1980. 30. Patria Libre, Managua, Ministry of Interior, No. 5, July 1980. 31. Syndicated article by US columnist Jack Anderson, 23 March 1980, quoting talks between Major General Robert L. Schweitzer, US Army Strategy Director, and the Honduran military regime.

358

The Threat of Counter-Revolution 32. Cable from

newspaper 33.

34.

Raimundo Riva Palacio, correspondent 28 November 1980.

for the

Mexican

jB'jcce/i/or,

Dissent Paper by outgoing officials of the State Department, Department of Defence, CIA and other US government agencies, Washington D.C.

Dissent Channel, November 1980. Daniel Ortega, address to the United Nations General Assembly, 28

September 1979. Policy and Revolutionary Process - the Case of El Salvador', unpublished working paper, May 980. 36. Latin America Regional Report, RC-80-01, 8 January 1980. 35.

Tommie-Sue Montgomery, 'US

1

1

37. Ibid.

38

Dissent Paper, op.

cit.

39. Quoted in Latin America Weekly Report, WR-80-15, 18 April 1980. 40. Interview with Salvadorean priest, former press secretary to Archbishop .

Romero and member

of the progressive Church organisation CONIP, London, August 1980. 41. Latin America Weekly Report, "WR-SO-IS, 18 July 1980, quoting (a) Major General Robert L. Schweitzer, (b) William M. LeoGrande and Carla Anne Robbins, in Foreign Affairs, Washington D.C. 42. Barricada coined this term in its 30 May 1980 edition. 43. Patria Libre, Managua, Ministry of the Interior, No. 6, August 1980. 44. Valpy Fitzgerald, interviewed in Latin America Regional Report, RM-80-03, 21 March 1980.

359

Postscript

Somoza

is dead, killed in a machine-gun and bazooka attack in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion. Ronald Reagan occupies the White House, put there by a little more than 26% of the American electorate. COSEP and the right-wing parties have walked out of the Council of State, serving notice that they are no longer prepared to debate state power from the inside. From grumbling opposition, the right-wing bourgeoisie has moved on to become the spearhead of foreign intervention. Like its allies in the local bourgeoisie, the new Reagan Administration has made it clear that its objective is the overthrow, not the modification, of the Sandinista state. Open hostilities on the part of COSEP, the MDN, the Social Christians and Democratic Conservatives began within a week of Reagan's election in November 1980, and the Nicaraguan people were not slow to draw the necessary conclusions. The right may have chosen to go its own way and abandon the principles of national unity, but the national unity which really counts - the solidity of the mass movement - has only been strengthened by the assaults of the past three months. Pod er Popular — Power to the People; Un Solo Ejercito — A Single Army. These are the chants which ring out today in every demonstration. And the words are matched with action. As in the insurrection itself, Nicaraguans are again a people in arms. The militias, 60,000 strong only a few months ago, have now grown to three times that number. The Brigada Ezequiel sweeps the northern border to combat the incursions of National Guard terrorists; other militia units watch over the key productive centres of the economy. The confidence of the people in their eventual victory is unswerving, as is their faith in the leadership of the FSLN.

Political

education

may

still

have a long

way

to go, but the mass organisations

are solidly structured at a national level, further steps have

been taken

towards eventual labour movement unity, the Sandinista party is being built not only in the state, but in the trade unions, the farms and the barrios. Plan 81 assumes a normal' development of the economy in the next year, hut Nicaraguans know and accept that its contingency plans for a war economy are more likely. If there is a danger, it is not that the people will abandon the Revolution, but that they will want to take it too far too fast, overtaking the careful timetabling of the FSLN in their anger at the internal provocations of the Right and the interventionism of the new administration

360

Postscript

Washington. Factory workers denounce the slightest hint of economic by their bosses. The young students of the Sandinista Youth, newly politicised by the five months of the Literacy Crusade, represent a wave of revolutionary energy which may not be easily channelled. The in

destabilisation

FSLN

has

tolerated,

made

it

however

clear that while

anarchy

in

the streets will not be

just the popular grievances, the actions of the people

no matter what form those actions may and delicate balance. Nicaragua today is a country under seige. The rhetoric of Reagan's foreign policy advisers in the months leading up to the November 1980 presidential election is now the policy of the US administration towards the region. Intervention is clearly on the agenda. US military advisers and new lethal hardware have been shipped to El Salvador, while continuing American support for the military rulers of Guatemala and Honduras is assured. Even the thirty-year democracy of Costa Rica is not safe, with the Americans against reaction will be endorsed, take.

It is

a difficult

fearing the existence of a stable base for the activities of the Left in the region. In January, a

band of former National Guardsmen

in that

county

attacked the left-leaning radio station Radio Noticias del Continente in San Jose.

The Carazo Odio Government, committed politically to the El Salvador down on the activities of Guatemalan and

Junta, has begun to crack

Salvadorean militants

in

Costa Rica. Senior Costa Rican policitians question

the very survival of their system.

But — apart from El Salvador — it is the destabilisation of Nicaragua that uppermost in Washington's mind. Within days of taking power, Reagan had announced the suspension of the remaining US $15 million in aid not disbursed by the Carter Administration. This is the first step. Other forms of economic aggression will follow: withholding of food aid, a blockade of Nicaraguan export markets, pressure on international finance institutions not to make capital available. Supposed Nicaraguan involvement in El Salvador will be used as the excuse for this economic aggression. At the same time, the USA will encourage the ever more virulent anti-Communist propaganda and economic sabotage of the Right within Nicaragua, and manipulate international media coverage to distort, discredit and isolate the Revolution. They will hope thereby to sow doubt in the minds of friendly governments, and to drive the FSLN into war communism and internal repression of opponents. This, Washington believes, will fire popular discontent with the Sandinista Government and provide the basis for an anti-FSLN uprising. Having stagemanaged this economic and political destabilisation, a military invasion from beyond Nicaragua's borders will then be launched. It is a strategy which is shared by the terrorist Right in Honduras and Florida, and since the death of Somoza in September 1979 one of the most significant developments has been the emergence of a new anti-Sandinista force in exile which has adopted an explicitly non-Somocista platform. The new group calls itself the Union Democratica Nicaraguense (UDN), and its leader is none other than Jose Francisco Cardenal — the same Cardenal who fled into exile in May 1980, denouncing his appointment to the viceis

361

The People

in

Power

presidency of the Council of State as

'a

hellish conspiracy

machine'. Cardenal claims to have several hundred armed

of the Communist

men

at his disposal,

and to have rejected the aid of National Guards who seek to restore a Somoza-style military dictatorship. There are signs that his requests for assistance have not fallen on deaf ears in Washington. Yet this strategy to overthrow Sandinismo is likely to come seriously unstuck. The open splits on major policy statements by Reagan Administration officials in their first weeks of office suggest that the divisions between the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and Department of Defence may not be a passing phenomenon of the Carter era, but something built much deeper into the fabric of American government. If the aggressive rhetoric of the Georgetown University ideologues continues to hold sway, Washington will have difficulty in persuading Nicaragua's Western friends to abandon the Sandinistas. Already Western social democracy has shown that it will not swallow US support for genocide in El Salvador, and the Socialist International has closed ranks behind Nicaragua by announcing the formation of a high-ranking Committee for the Defence of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

US

policy will also find

it

difficult to bring the

Nicaraguan bourgeoisie into

package was destined in the main for the private sector, and a cut-off of financial assistance by Reagan will alienate significant sectors of COSEP and the MDN. Many businessmen will see this as a repeat of US policy towards Cuba in I960, 'driving Nicaragua into the arms of Moscow' and abandoning the local bourgeoisie to its fate. But, above all, Washington's hostility will run up against the resolve of the Nicaraguan masses to defend their victories. '50.000 of us died to get rid

line. Carter's aid

of Somoza,' said one times that

CDS member

number of dead

'And if it takes five from the Reagan terrorists, Jaime Wheelock, speaking the sameie in

January 1981

.

to defend our country

then we're prepared for that too.'

month to the First International Conference of Solidarity with Nicaragua, made it clear that the FSLN felt the same way: 'We l:now all too well what value of this revolution is, and we shall preserve our national sovereignty .

.

.

salt

Nicaragua

January, 1981

362

may be swept away and destroyed,

and ashes, but

it

will

never be conquered.'

its fields

may

the

be turned into

Select Bibliography

Nicaragua is very little documented. My main written sources have been the Nicaraguan press {Barricada, La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario)\ pamphlets, manifestos and internal documents of the FSLN; manifestos and communiques of other political organisations (FAO, UDEL, MPU, COSEP etc); and the Latin American press, in particular Granma and Bohemia of Cuba, Alternativa of Colombia and numerous Mexican newspapers. In English, the most reliable sources of information are the Latin America Weekly and Regional Reports of London, and the NACLA Reports on the Americas (New York). This list, therefore, is for the general reader who wants to locate the few serious books and major articles on the Nicaraguan Revolution, and with few exceptions is limited to material readily available in Europe and the

USA. Books and Pamphlets Amnesty International: The Republic of Nicaragua, London, AI, 1977. Black, George and Bevan, John; The Loss of Fear: Education in Nicaragua Before and After the Revolution, London, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign/ World University Service, 1980. Blandon, Jesus Miguel: Entre Sandino y Fonseca, Managua, Impresiones y Troqueles, 1980.

Camejo, Pedro and Murphy, Fred (eds): The Nicaraguan Revolution, New York, Pathfinder, 1979. Crawley, Eduardo: Dictators Never Die: A Portrait of Nicaragua and the Somozas, London, C. Hurst, 1979. CSUCA: Estructura Agraria, Dinamica de Poblacion y Desarrollo Capitalista en Centroamerica, San Jose Costa Rica, EDUCA, 1978. Debray, Regis: A Critique of Arms, London, Penguin, 1977. Debray, Regis: The Revolution on Trial, London, Penguin, 1978. EPICA Task Force: Nicaragua: A People's Revolution, Washington D.C.,

EPICA, 1980. Fonseca Amador, Carlos: Escritos, Managua, SENAPEP, 1979. Gilly, Alfonso: La Nueva Nicaragua: Anti-Imperialismo y Lucha de Clases, Mexico City, Ed. Nueva Imagen, 1980. lEPALA: Nicaragua: El Pueblo Frente a la Dinastia, Madrid, Instituto de Estudios Politicos para America Latina y Africa, 1978. Latin America Bureau: Nicaragua: Dictatorship and Revolution, London, Latin America Bureau, 1979. Lopez, J., Nunez, O., Chamorro, C.F., Serres, P.: La Caida del Somocismo

363

Triumph of the People

y la Lucha Sandinista en Nicaragua, San Jose, EDUCA, 1979. Martin, Megan and Willett, Susie (eds): Women in Nicaragua, London, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, 1980. Millett, Richard: Guardians of the Dynasty, Maryknoll, Orbis, 1977 Ministerio de Planification: Programa de Reactivacion Economica en Beneficio del Pueblo (Plan 80), Managua, SENAPEP, 1980. Ministerio de Planificacion: Programa Economico de Austeridad y Eficiencia, Managua, MIPLAN, 1981 Nunez, Carlos: Un Pueblo en Armas (Informe del Frente Interno), Managua,

SENAPEP, 1980. Ortega, Humberto: 50 Anos de Lucha Sandinista, Managua, SENAPEP, 1980. Ramirez, Sergio (ed): El Pensamiento Vivo de Sandino, San Jose, EDUCA 5th edition, 1980. Selser, Gregorio: Sandino, General de Hombres Libres, San Jose, EDUCA 2nd edition, 1979. Tefel, Reinaldo A.: El Infierno de los Pobres: Diagnostico Social de los Barrios Marginales de Managua, Managua, El Pez y la Serpiente, 3rd edition, 1976. Tijerino, Doris: Inside the Nicaraguan Revolution, Vancouver, New Star Books, 1979. Torres Rivas, Edelberto: Interpretacion del Desarrollo Social Centroamericano, San Jose, EDUCA, 5th edition, 1977, Wheelock Roman, Jaime: Diciembre Victorioso, Managua, SENAPEP, 1979. Wheelock Roman, Jaime: Imperialismo y Dictadura: Crisis de una Formacion Social, Mexico City, Siglo XXI, 3rd edition, 1979. Wheelock Roman, Jaime: Raices Indigenas de la Lucha Anti-Colonialista en Nicaragua, Mexico City, Siglo XXI, 1974. — La Revolucion a Traves de Nuestra Direccion Nacional, Managua, SENAPEP, 1980. — Nicaragua: Combate de un Pueblo, Presencia de los Cristianos, Lima, Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1978. Articles

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel: 'Sandinistas Seize the National Palace', TV^w Left Review, London, No. Ill, September-October 1 978. Jung, Harald: The Fall of Somoza\ A^ew Le// /?ey/ew, London, No. 117, September-October 1979. Petras, James: 'Whither the Nicaraguan Revolution? 'Mo a? r/i/j^ Review, New York, Vol. 31, No. 5, October 1979. — 'Nicaragua Patria Libre' Cfl^fl (if' /fl^^mencfir^, Havana, No. 117, November-December 1979. Ministerio de Cultura: Nicarauac, Managua, Nos. 1,2,3. North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA): 'Nicaragua', Latin America and Empire Report, New York, Vol. X, No. 2, February 1976. NACLA: 'Nicaragua in Crisis', Report on the Americas, New York. Vol. XII, No. 6, November-December 1978. NACLA: 'Nicaragua's Revolution', /^^por/ on the Americas, New York, Vol. XIV, No. 3, May-June 980. NACLA: 'The Pentagon's Proteges', Larm America and Empire Report, New 1

York, Vol. X, No.

364

1

,

January

1

976.

Index Agrarian Reform 37,42,53,94, 121, 187, 191 208-9, 214, 234, 250-1 264-72, ,

,

347 under Somoza 265-6 Agriculture 5

,

8, 69, 92, 201-2, 208-1

1

216-7,251-2 Alliance for Progress 39, 42-3, 47, 78, 265

AMNLAE 231,271,312,314,323-8 AMPRONAC 101, 111, 121,324-5 Andean Pack 155,171, 176-7,302 Anti-communism 305-6,333,348-51, 355,361 Arce, Bayardo 147, 230, 248, 302, 310-1

339 Association of Rural Workers (ATC) 101, 144, 192,213,215,231,234,249, 25 1-2, 264, 270-5, 279, 289-90, 310,

312,336 Atlantic Coast 6-7, 16, 20, 22, 121, 158,

210-2, 238, 241

,

247-8, 266, 277,

304,306-7,315-6 Austerity 202-3,218,291-3

Chile50,56,87, 107, 176-7, 192,212, 223,345 CIA 48, 222n, 284, 302, 354, 357n Civil Defence Committees (CDCs) 122-3, 134, 137,139,152,162-3,167-8, 179,240,320,323 Class Alliances 22, 72, 97, 104, 1 16, 152, 1,223, 252, 264 \ see also National

n

Unity

Communist

Party of Nicaragua 72, 117, 121, 145-6, 221n, 225, 234, 247,

260,276,283,3334 CONDECA42,44,47-9,56n,134,

178,

351 Conservative Party 4-12, 16, 18, 23, 28-9, 31, 38,424,58,61,65, 71-2, 73n, 75,81-2,84,106-7,111, 116-7,126, 194 Co-operatives 22, 53, 58, 228, 267,

269-72,318 Cordova Rivas, Rafael 30, 128, 138, 151,

195,343,347

COSEP

BANAMERICA

37-8, 62-6,

1

10-1, 207,

218

BANIC 37^,

62-6,

1

10-1

,

1

16, 138, 207,

218

64, 100, 106, 156, 191-2, 195, 199, 204-5, 208, 214-6, 220, 245, 248-9, 254, 257, 278-9, 319, 332,

342,344,346-7,360,362 Costa Rica 5,39,48-50,89, 102, 112,

Barrios de

Chamorro, Violeta 171,

1

95

3424 Basic Infantry Training School (EEBI) 3,51-2,54-5, 108, 125, 128, 132-3,

147, 153,159-60,179 Borge, Tomas 52, 75-6, 85, 90, 94, 97, 125, 128, 147,191,224,227,230, 235 238-9, 257-8, 278, 281 292, 302, ,

,

124,129,134,151,156, 158,169, 171,215,348,361 Council of State 16, 172, 194-5, 198-9, 239, 244-9, 251 254-5 257, 260, 278, 336, 339, 341 343, 347, 360 Credit Policies 40, 63, 1 10, 204-5, 21 1 ,

,

,

215,251,265-6,270,272 Cruz, Arturo 104, 172, 216, 218, 343,

347

311,339 Broad Opposition Front (FAO) 116, 118,

122,124,126-7,137-9,151,156-7, 170,175-7,244-5,319,325 Carazo Odio, Rodrigo 151, 158,301,361 Cardenal, Ernesto 102,316-7,322 Cardenal, Fernando 98n, 104, 174, 316,

Cuba 8, 30, 41-2, 47-8, 62, 72, 76, 88, 117,175,194,196-7,240,300-2, 305-6,323,340,354,357,362 Decapitalisation 215,252-3,286-8,332 Democracy, Sandinista 139, 199-200,

299-34, 239, 244-9, 253-6, 258, 260,

2734

322 Cardenal, Jose Francisco 195,248,361-2

Carrion,Luis92,147,179, 199,224,230 Carter, President 56, 62, 101, 137, 150, 173-6, 188, 219, 220, 300, 303, 341,

3524,356

Democratic Conservative Party (PCD) 73n,153, 195,214,244,248,254,

257,342,344,346-8,360 Distribution 137, 200, 209, 212-3, 270, 277, 296 see also Prices Dual Power 122, 13740, 143, 152, 199 ;

Castro, Fidel 42,48-9, 76, 117, 179, 190,

196,301,340 Catholic Church 6

87 9 1 96 1 00, 1 02 1 106,111, 126,139,247,316-23 Central American Common Market (MCCA) 35,3844,66, 172,208, 210,251 Chamorro, Emiliano 9, 10, 12, 19, 32 Chamorro FamUy 5,38, 106, 108,343 Chamorro, Pedro Joaquin 30, 424, 49, 58,61,65-6,84,106-10,112,139, 318,343-5 ,

,

,

,

Earthquake 35 41 49, 52, 58-9, 62-5 ,

,

85-6

Economic Planning 201 ff, 250, 360 Elections 7, 10, 13, 19,28-9,31-2,41,43-

434,51,58,61,64-5,80,82,84, 86, 106-7, 111-2, 174-6, 199, 253-6 3940, 48-50,

El Salvador 25, 29, 33,

56,138,177-8,188,200,215,237. 271 300, 3034, 331 333, 344, 351-2, ,

,

354-6,362-3

365

,

,,

FDR-FMLN in 351-3 Espino Negro, Pact of 13, 16-7,21, 111, 245 Export Crops 5,10,37,67,69, 200, 208-10,216-7,264,267-8 Bananas 10, 16,20,69,86,209,215 Coffee 7^, 10-1,20,31,34,37,67, 69, 77, 98n, 129,201,208-9,215,

251-2,268,270,290

Guatemala 6, 25, 29, 39, 41 47-8, 1 38, 177-8,188, 192,215,237,331, 351-2,361 Guevara, 'Che' 75-6, 82, 185, 236, 310 ,

Guerrilla Warfare FSLN and 17, 44, 47, 61, Ch. 6

passim, 117, 160,223,273 in Latin America 82-3, 223

Sandino and 17-8,21

Cotton 37-8, 62, 65, 67-9, 75, 77, 93, 109,

115,129,201,209,216,268

Sugar 268, 290, 336 Export Products Gold 6,10, 20, 22, 32, 35, 210-1, 218

Rubber 10,37 share of 37,62 European share of 37

US

Hassan, Moises 167,171,247,253,294

Honduras 6, 8, 13,25,3940,48-50, 76,78,177-8,200,215,225,271, 311,350-2,356 Ideology, 71, 77,79,90,95, 136, 169-

70,186, 194,197,229,258,306-11,

Expulsion of Peasants 11, 15, 18, 37, 53,

314,333

INDE

68-9,75,80,210,266

38,64-5, 100, 105-6,

1

11-2, 127,

214,319,346 75-7 834, 90-1 1 124,137,257,309 Foquismo 72, 82

Fonseca, Carlos 7

,

Independent Liberal Party (PLI) 29, 31 43, 65, 73n, 13940, 244, 248, 260

,

96,

Industrialisation

Foreign Aid 34-5,53,59-60, 171, 174,

187,197,219,248,295,332 Foreign Debt 9,40,59,66-7, 100, 121, 171, 187,201,218-9,332 FSLN 3, 9, 1 1 16-7, 25, 44, 46-7, 49, 52, ,

54,60,61,63,65,66,68,71,73, 123-4, 130,1324, 138, 150, 153, 155-6, 158-60, 165-8, 171, 175-6, 179 andChurch 92,96, 102-3, 118, 135,

139,169-70 and Peasantry 72 78-8 1 84 88-9 92 94-5,127 and Socialists 72, 77, 80, 82, 92, 1 18, ,

,

INFONAC39,42,45n,87,218 INRA 209, 216, 251, 264-72, 274,

314, 336, 356, see also Agrarian Reform

Tendency 92-3, 95-7, 101-5,108,112,117-8,122,125,

Insurrectional

129,136,143,145,223,230

86,101, 104,106-10,113,115-6,

,

35,3740,42,60,62,

67-9,210

,

Intermediate Organisations 82 84-5 91 ,

,

120,233 International Monetary

Fund (IMF)

67-8,148,150-2

INVIERN0 53,58,251,266 Land Invasions 60, 71, 109,123,216,

145

234,265,2734,336

and Students 77, 81-2, 84, 93, 96,

Ownership 8, 22-3, 32, 34, 36, 89, 210-1,215,264,269-70

120, 143 as party 91

,

92, 138, 199-200, 229,

230,232,257^1,360 in power Part 111 passim leadership of 8 1-5, 87, 90-7, 105, 128,

144-5,147, 162,172 political

programme of 82, 84, 93,

96-7,121, 129 self-criticism by 83, 91-2, 149 structure of 114, 120, 135-6 unity of 95, 105, 112,117,120,122, 125-6, 128-9, 136, 142-9, 157, 172 urban bases of 57, 78, 804, 88, 92,

95 see also separate tendencies (GPP, Insurrectional, Proletarian)

Rental 265, 268-9 Latifundismo 24, 37, 53, 69, 94 Liberal Party 4-6,8-11, 13,16,18,23,

31-2,39,69,84,126 191,206,255,300, 311-6,339,347,350 Los Doce 104-6,110,113,116-7, 126-8, 13840,150,171, 199,244 Literacy Crusade

MAP-FO

117, 140, 197,221n,225,227, 234, 244, 274, 276-7, 280, 333-9 Mass Organisations 94 111, 122, 136, 172, 190, 194, 199, 200, 203, 206, 228, 2304, 239, 245-52, 259, 290, ,

296,310,312,342

Generation of '44 29, 343

Mexico 6,8, 12-3, 16,18,25, 124,151-2 171, 176,218,303-5

GPP Tendency

Militias 128-9, 135, 146, 160, 165, 180,

92-7, 102-5, 108, 112,

117,126,128, 136,1434,230 Great Britain 5-8, 10,211 Grenada 191,301,304,307,354 Group of Twelve See Los Doce

366

188, 190, 224-9, 261n, 360 247-8, 307; see also Atlantic Coast Moncada, Jose Maria 13, 16, 18-9, 214,

MISURASATA

47 Monroe Doctrine 6-8,57 Mosquito Kingdom 6,211

controls 121, 137, 206, 250, 270,

277,295-7 cotton 37,67,75 world market 1 0, 37 40, 264 Production 202-5, 219, 251, 254, 285, 289-91 agricultural 60, 69, 217, 264-5, 268, ,

National Guard 3-4, 10, 12-3, 17, 19,21, 23, 28, 34, 44, 46-54, 57-9, 66, 76, 78-86, 88-91, 93, 95, 98n,

6M,

100-3,105,108-10,112-5,117-8,

270-1,313

120-1, 123-36, 138-9, 146-7, 149-53, 158-60, 163, 165-6, 168-70, 173, 176-8, 194,224,238,273,318,355 in exile 188, 225-7, 229, 237, 254,

collectives 244, 294,314 industrial 40, 217-8, 283

311,331,350,352,356,361

wartime 167-8 workers' control 287-9 Tendency 92-7, 101-5, 109, 117,122,126,129, 136,143-5, 199,

Proletarian

(PLN) 28-9, 32,43,50,61,85,101, 116,126, 138,156,170,177 National Patriotic Front (FPN) 13940, 143,145-7,152,170-1,244,260 National Unity 16,30,63,68,91-2,96, Nationalist Liberal Party

230 Pueblo, El 234,336-9

Ramirez, Sergio 22,25, 104, 128, 138,

171,176,185,215,2334,304,342

,

Reagan, President 219-20, 254, 352, 356, 359-361 Revolutionary Student Front (FER)

(MDN)

Robelo, Alfonso 65, 68, 106, 112,

100, 105, 117-22, 137, 139-40, 145, 170, 186^, 192-8, 201, 204, 213, 215, 250, 259, 260, 286-7, 301 316,

319,342,360

82,84-6,93,96

Nicaraguan Democratic Movement

115-7,138,171,195,209,216,244, 248-9, 314, 332, 3404, 346-7, 360, 632 Nicaraguan Socialist 30-1 43, 58, 60-1 ,

65-6,70-2,77,80,82,84-6,88,92, 110, 117-8, 121, 139, 145, 165,221n,

1

15-6,

128,138,151,171,175,195,216, 259,302,314,33943,347,349,356 Roosevelt, President, 33, 1 74 Ruiz, Henry 75, 80, 83, 89, 94-5, 97, 105.

117,144,147,192,197,204,216, 230,250,311,337

244,247^,260,276,281,335 Non-Aligned Movement 191, 220, 300-1 Nunez, Carlos 146-7,165,192,194, 230-1 252, 260, 284, 286 31 1 334 ,

,

,

Organisation of American States (OAS) 44,49,56, 137, 155-6, 165, 170-1,

176-8,304 Ortega, Daniel 87, 96-7, 103, 147, 171, 191 230, 250, 268, 269, 301 341 ,

,

353 Ortega, Humberto 97, 104, 114,130, 135, 143, 147, 151, 196,2234,230,

250,255,311,339

Sacasa, Juan Bautista 10, 12-3, 21, 23-5,

28-9,47 Sandinista Defence Committees (CDSs)

168,173,179,190, 199,200,212, 23944, 247,250, 253, 284, 295-6,307,312,320,341

231-3,

Sandinista People's Army (EPS) 92, 105, 121, 146, 159, 188, 190, 198, 223-9,

283,312,327,339 Youth 254, 312, 361

Sandinista

Sandino Augusto Cesar 4 13, 1 5 -26 39, 47, 70, 76-9, 89-90, 113,1 36-7, 148, 160, 169, 225, 239, 245, 301, ,

,

309,317,323,340,346,353 Pacts 13, 32, 38, 58, 62, 71, 11 1,215; see also Espino Negro

Seasonal Labour 69-70, 77, 129, 210,

Panama5,8,31,33,49,126,134, 160, 171,176,302 Panama Canal 7,37,47,174,301 Pastora,Eden 117,1244,134,157-8,

Shelton, Turner B. 41 57-8, 86-7 Simon Bolivar Brigade 334-6, 358n Social Democratic Party (PSD) 316, 346,

227 People's Social Christian Party (PPSC)

13940,244,260 Plantation Labour 37,68-9, 93, 129,211,

266 Popular Fronts 117-8, 194 Prensa, La 30-\, 65, 8S,9\, 100-1, 104,

106-7,109,126,138,155, 191,213, 254, 282, 300, 302, 318, 33841, 3435,357 Prices

coffee 11,66-7

265,271-2 ,

348 Socialist International

171,191, 3034

362

Wage 291-3, 295-8, 337 Somoza, Jose 5 1 87 1 25 Social

,

,

Somoza Abrego, Jose 1 25 126 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio 3,9, ,

33-5, 48-9, 54, 57-8, 60-1, 64-6, 68, Part passim, 214, 218, 253, 265-6, 279,

11

282,294,306,318,347 and National Guard 414, 50, 58, 61 83,88,101, 108 death of 360

367

UDEL

resignation 173, 176-9 Luis 334, 41-4

Somoza Debayle, Somoza dynasty

58, 61, 63, 65-6, 72, 86, 92, 101-2

104-12,115-7,122,157,343 Ultra-leftism 234, 302, 310, 332, 334-9

and Central America 42, 44, 48, 50 and Liberal Party 28,31,41 and USA 4, 11-2,23,25,41,47,58,

62,196 economic wealth 4, 31-2, 34-7, 3940, 50,60,94,208,264 origins 16

Somoza Garcia, Anastasio 34, 10, 12, 21, 23-5,28,31,34,47,50,72,133,278 and National Guard 234, 28-32 deathof 30,32-3,41,71,75,133 rise to power 234, 28-32

Unemployment 20, 40, 41 60, 68-9, 70, 75,243,2934 United Fruit Company 7,13,38,48 United People's Movement (MPU) 1204, 132, 137, 13940, 145-7, 152, 160, 167,171,199,231,244 ,

United States Capital Investment

in

Nicaragua 10,

16-7,19-20,35-9,41,57,210-1,282 Development Statregies for Nicaragua

3740,43,71

192-6, 198-200, 206, 223ff, 256-7,

Economic Aid to Nicaragua 219-20, 284,302,361-2 Foreign Policy 9-13, 23, 334, 39, 42,47-8,57-8,65,118,171,176-7, 188-9, 197,219,220,303,305, 350,353,355,361-2 Human Rights Policy 62,101, 111, 174-6,353,361-2

266,349

Intervention in Nicaragua 4-9, 12,

use of state power 31, 36, 38,41,43,

50,60 Somoza Portocarrero, Anastasio 3,51, 5454-5, 59, 108,

1

14,

1

19n, 125, 148-9,

331,352 State Power 31, 50,63, 172, 180, 186, State, Weakness of 5-6 , 9-1 1 46 Strikes 16, 28-31 60, 70-1 , 85-6, ,

,

1

10-3,

115,122-3,126-7,136,152,157, 212,232,247,273,276,279,282-6, 336-8 Tellez,

Dora Maria 124, 126, 248, 292,

3234 Terceristas see Insurrectional

Tendency

15-9,21-3,25,33,46,49,50,59, 63,111, 113,137-8,144, 147,156,

170,176,317 Intervention in Region 8, 10, 18, 33,

42,44,48-9,119,156,175,177, 333,351,354 Military Aid 31,33,41,46-8,55, 1731734,350-2,354,361 USSR 72, 302

Tirado Lopez, Victor 77-8, 97, 147,230,

349 Trade Unions 16,20,24,30-1,61,65, 70-2,84,91,110,120-1, 170,192, 203,206,211-2,216,247,260,275-

91,293,297,309,327 Trade Union Federations

CAUS

72, 121, 145, 247, 252, 276-80.

2834,291 CGT-I 60,71-2,86, 110, 121,244, 247,252,276,279-80

CST

190, 212-3. 215, 228, 231, 249, 252-3, 275^9, 294, 309-10, 312, 327 CTN 72, 244, 247, 275-9, 281-2, 348

CUS 72,245,276,278-9,282

368

Vietnam War 18,40,48-9,354 Voluntary Ubour 272, 277, 289-90

Wages 11,40,51,60,68-9,71,88, 152, 201,212,215,274,276,279,282-3,

285,2924,297-8,309 Walker, William 5-6, 15, 225 Wheelock, Jaime 63, 68, 92, 98n, 147, 204, 216, 250-2, 266-7, 269, 339, 362

Women,Roleof 21,101,103,115,121, 127,225,227,231,259,271,312, 323-8, see also

AMPRONAC

AMNLAE,

i

America Serses

Latin

Nicaragua: Triunrr>h of the People

r-voluton

first successfij'

revolution

th^. bo; k

!:.

i*

had worn?

radicalised priests at

And what

its

arn ed

.veis? Or, whi'e

'

al'

tie story of latin /

stru'^^'.: :»as

Oi e i.brdcec

guerrillai,^'

rooted

nrjerjca's

3 remar-.i-ble

markes clear. V\/hat oth.r

'nprisinq ?r»% of

l

is

Cuba.

s:::ce

"n

the ;.3asantry

and urban working das has been supported by broad soctors of the middle classes, .\licaraguc': revolJtion of July 19th 1979 - led by the Sandi'' sta National. bib.e?dllon Front (FSLN) - is Latin American history and pregnant with both a landmark experiences rel' yant to c iher Third World national liberation ,

;

struggles.

Here

's

the 43-y9

mainly

foci'^es

majo: study of the Sandinista- Revolution that

first

:\